Hackensack DPW can't cope with mild storm

On Sunday morning, more than 24 hours after the snow stopped falling, Euclid Avenue, between Main and Linden streets, was still covered with the slippery white stuff. The Hackensack Department of Public Works apparently was hoping strong sunlight and higher temperatures would take care of the mess.

On Main Street, people had to climb over snow to board NJ Transit buses.

Snow also covered the pavement where Prospect Avenue meets Passaic Street.

Hackensack residents were thankful they didn't have to weather the full force of Friday's nor'easter, knowing how poorly the city's Department of Public Works does on clearing streets after major snowstorms.

Even after this mild snowstorm, the city's Department of Public Works plows missed a lot.

Early Sunday afternoon, I was driving behind a DPW dump truck filled with snow, and the driver never lowered his plow on the snow-covered block of Euclid Avenue, between Linden and Main streets, that other plows hadn't bothered to clear.

In decades of coverage, The Record's local news editors have never rated Hackensack and other municipalities on how well they do in cleaning up after snowstorms -- from plowing streets to clearing crosswalks and bus stops to enforcing ordinances on shoveling snow off of sidewalks.

That likely is one reason town officials have been able to shirk the duty they owe to provide safe streets and sidewalks for drivers and pedestrians.

A reader-friendly front page

Image by quintanomedia via Flickr

Now, this is a front page thousands of readers can relate to: Fare hikes and service cuts at NJ Transit, rising health insurance premiums for small businesses and, some really good news, more tickets for drivers who text or talk behind the wheel.

Why can't The Record of Woodland Park do this every day? These are the kind of quality-of-life issues North Jersey residents want to see reported even more than sensational crime stories and sports news. The NJ Transit story made radio news today and at least one station gave credit to "The Record of Hackensack."

The impact of Page 1 is lost by the time you get to the wishy-washy editorial on A-20, which lets Governor Christie and the acting transportation czar off the hook for not seeking higher gasoline taxes to fund road, bridge and mass transit projects, and for cutting NJ Transit subsidies.

Christie is favoring drivers and penalizing mass transit users who choose to leave their cars at home, as well as local bus riders who can't afford cars. 


Two Englewood stories appear in Local, the first since Feb. 18. Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano reports that Mayor Frank Huttle strongly criticized city employees for doing a poor job of plowing -- during and after the two-day snowstorm last week.

Rather than going to Englewood right after the storm and reporting what she saw, Fabiaono attended a council meeting Tuesday night to get the story, which appears nearly a week after the storm ended. She didn't, for example, see or report how pedestrians were forced on Monday to walk in the narrow, dangerous roadway of Forest Avenue, not far from the Teaneck border, because property owners hadn't cleared their sidewalks.

As far as I know, The Record gives a pass to towns after every snowstorm, rarely if ever rating them on the effectiveness of plowing streets and clearing bus stops or reporting that some homeowners don't bother to shovel snow off their sidewalks.  

Head Assignment Editor Deirde Sykes and her lazy, incompetent minions simply don't care about readers' problems driving or walking after a snowstorm. Apparently, all the ungainly Sykes can manage is to try and avoid a repeat of her falling to the ground and injuring herself, as she did many years ago in the Hackensack parking lot.

You won't find any Hackensack or Teaneck news in the paper today.

Finally, for those who believe my tone is too harsh, all I can say is these are the high standards I was held to during 15-plus years as a reporter for The Record and two other daily newspapers, and during my seven years of freelance writing for The Record's Food section. Those standards were even higher during my nearly 20 years as a news copy editor in Hackensack.

In view of the dire straits The Record and other newspapers find themselves in, owners, editors and reporters should continue to be held to these high standards, and shouldn't belly-ache when they are taken to task for failing to live up to their responsibilities.