Untold story of Zisas' attempted comeback betrays readers

In February, former four-term Hackensack Mayor Jack Zisa spoke to an overflow crowd of loyalists at the Crow's Nest Restaurant, where Team Hackensack was launched. The so-called community organization, backed by the Zisa family, sponsored candidates in April's school board and school budget election, and plans to run a slate in next May's municipal election.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Six months after the Zisa family got three candidates elected or appointed to the city's Board of Education, The Record still hasn't printed a word about their new political organization, Team Hackensack. 

The Zisas ruled Hackensack for more than 30 years, beginning with the election of Frank Zisa in 1977.

Through the years, their influence was so pervasive, the city soon was cursed with the label of "Zisaville."

Now, Team Hackensack plans to run candidates in next May's municipal election, hoping to defeat the slate of reformers elected in 2013.

At the inaugural meeting of Team Hackensack in February, supporters were greeted by:

Jack Zisa, who served as mayor from 1989-2005; former City Attorney Joseph C. Zisa Jr.; and Ken Zisa, the former police chief who last week reached an agreement with the city that will bring him nearly $3 million.

See: Ken Zisa hits municipal jackpot

Today's paper

So-called Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to turn his back on commuters to write about a "traffic trap" in Cedar Grove that snared rapper Fetty Wap (A-1).

The Paterson native is shown on Page 1 holding some of the $175,000 in cash he brought to municipal court (A-1).

Let's hope the rapper, whose real name is Willie J. Maxwell II, doesn't become the target of the same kind of gunpoint robbery that reportedly stripped celebrity Kim Kardashian of $10 million in jewels.

Christie's F-bombs

When a Monmouth County freeholder left an expletive-filled voicemail complaining about Governor Christie taking credit for Superstorm Sandy recovery efforts in 2012, the GOP bully upped the ante with several F-bombs of his own.

In a Page 1 story on testimony in the Bridgegate trial, The Record quoted Christie with "expletive" in brackets, but on Twitter, Staff Writer Paul Berger was far more explicit:

"Who the fuck do you think you are calling me 'a fat fuck?' I'm the fucking Governor of this state," Christie told Freeholder John P. Curley.

"If you're not in Keansburg tomorrow, standing behind me on the podium, I will fucking destroy you. I will have a robo call sent out to every Republican before Election Day telling them not to vote for you."

Coal-fired plants

In another Page 1 story today, environmental reporter James O'Neill fails to mention that coal-fired power plants are the main source of mercury in fish (A-1).

Opponents of a 23-cents-per-gallon hike in the gasoline tax haven't come up with an alternative way of funding the Transportation Trust Fund, which is run by an independent agency of state government (A-1).

The legislative logjam lasted for years until Christie got Democrats to agree to cut taxes on the wealthy.

Editors remove heads from assholes

Image via Wikipedia
"The Republicans were protecting fat cats from higher taxes,"a Rutgers University political scientist comments today in The Record.

To Editors of The Record:


Tell us something we don't know, for crying out loud.


"Politics" doomed deficit-reduction talks? Really? Where has Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson been? Living in a cave?


Politics have paralyzed Congress for more than a year. Why does interim Editor Doug Clancy even think it's necessary to label Jackson's Page 1 story today as an "Analysis"?


Clancy had his head buried in newsroom budget books for far too long, trying to figure out new ways to screw the news copy editors and pamper the digital news group, which puts out the clunky NorthJersey.com.


And is it news to anyone who lives in North Jersey that the region is pockmarked with failed chemical cleanups or that the system is broken (A-1)?


What about the "broken" flood-control system, the "broken" home-rule system of local government and the "broken" property tax system?


Failure of government is evident all around us, on the national, state and local levels, but the editors can't stop defending the status quo -- inside and outside the Woodland Park daily.


Even a third front-page story -- on the dangerous chemical BPA in can liners, drink bottles and other metal containers -- is at least a year late.


Of heads and holes


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes continues to cover court motions relating to suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa more than she does the city's municipal affairs (L-3).


Although there is no Hackensack municipal news in the paper today, Sykes found room for two stories from Ridgewood (L-2 and L-6), plus stories from Northvale (L-1) and North Arlington (L-3).


An editorial on A-18 today blasts Republicans in Congress for blocking new, healthier school lunch guidelines, despite an obesity epidemic that seems to have escaped the attention of Sykes and the other editors at the paper.


Chewing the fat


In a talk on Monday to a class of seniors at Bergen Community College, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill noted she also is in charge of health and fitness coverage, but didn't explain why that doesn't extend to healthy food.


Sherrill didn't mention that many of the recipes in her weekly column call for inordinate amounts of artery clogging heavy cream and butter.


Or, that the restaurant reviews she edits rarely mention that most of the poultry and meat served contains harmful antibiotics, growth hormones and animal by-products.


She spoke about consumers' fondness for swordfish, tuna and other large fish, but not that they contain the most mercury or that wildly popular farmed salmon is artificially colored.
  
Isn't it the responsibility of Sherrill, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung and other food writers to supply this information to readers, so they don't have to rely solely on menus, supermarket ads and TV food shows?

The photogenic front page

Image via Wikipedia

The Record today is an example of how feature news with a good photo trumps news of vital importance to readers in North Jersey.

On Page 1, the main element is a story and photo about a West Milford woman who will donate her home, a business and land to the township to end a decades-long search for a site to expand or replace the community library. Isn't that nice? How sweet. OK. The township is really far away from Bergen County, and hasn't it fought for decades against Newark's attempts to build affordable housing on city-owned watershed land? Isn't that racism?

So where is the real news? On the front of the Local section, Staff Writer Ashley Kindergan reports weak ethical rules in many towns allow pay-to-play and nepotism to flourish. This story has a nice graphic, but not nice enough, I guess, for Page 1. The Record has long defended home rule, which, many observers believe, fosters corruption and keeps property taxes high. Did that have something to do with placement of the Kindergan story?

Want more New Jersey news? Unfortunately, the A-section has lots of stories, but they are from Texas, Maine, California, Cleveland, Arizona, Seattle, Baghdad, Jerusalem and so forth.

Better Living has the usual food coverage in a Monday paper -- a single vegetarian recipe -- but under Health on F-8, there is more: a Washington Post story about fish that are not only caught sustainably but are also rich "in long-chain omega-3 fatty acids," a key in reducing the risk of heart disease.Pole-caught albacore tuna is listed, but the rankings by the "influential" Monterey Bay Aquarium don't take this tuna's high mercury content into account. So the headline isn't really accurate: "Good for the oceans and good for you." The story probably could have used a subhead: "Oh, but not the albacore tuna."

This is one of the dangers of running a lot of stories supplied by outside sources, including the Washington Post, especially when, like The Record, your food and copy editors know little about what is healthy and what is not.