Christie's signature achievement is ruled unconstitutional

The Pathmark in the Home Depot Shopping Center in Hackensack closed in April 2011 and hasn't been replaced. That means tenants of an apartment complex next door have to get into their cars to go food shopping.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The pension "reform" Governor Christie signed into law in 2011 was declared unconstitutional today by the New Jersey Supreme Court.

The Record, especially political Columnist Charles Stile, has invoked that law repeatedly in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election as showing Christie's so-called bipartisanship.

But the high court ruled that progressively higher payments into the strapped pension system for seven years violated the constitution by creating new long-term debt, North Jersey.com reports.

"In New Jersey, voters must approve new debts by referendum," Associate Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote for the majority.

The GOP bully has balanced his last two budgets by cutting $2.4 billion from pension funding he had promised, and vows to reduce a $3.1 billion payment to $1.3 billion in the coming budget, which must be signed July 1, The Record's Web site reports.

But voters are certain to stop Christie from doing so next year, if the Democratic-controlled state Legislature succeeds in getting a proposal for guaranteed pension funding on the ballot.

The New Jersey pension system represents 770,000 public workers and retirees, including teachers.

Voodoo economics

To balance his budgets, Christie has repeatedly used cuts in pension payments, health services for women and other middle- and working-class programs.

At the same time, he has repeatedly vetoed a tax surcharge on millionaires, refused to raise the low gasoline tax and grabbed mass transit funds to fix roads and bridges.

In short, Christie is the worst New Jersey governor in history, and experts say he doesn't have a ghost of a chance at getting the GOP presidential nomination, if he decides to seek it.

Readers' eyes are rolling over upbeat Christie coverage

Volunteer jazz musicians entertaining visitors at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center on Wednesday.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Governor Christie was popular as late as November 2012?

That's the ridiculous assertion of The Record's burned-out political columnist, Charles Stile, who continues to try and sell the GOP bully's supposed bipartisanship in yet another Page 1 analysis of the 2016 presidential election. (A-1 and A-8).

What about the loss of $400 million in federal education aid in 2010 -- his first year in office -- followed several months later by Christie pulling the plug on new Hudson River rail tunnels and the biggest expansion of mass transit in decades?

What about repeated vetoes of a tax surcharge on millionaires and hundreds of millions in tax breaks for wealthy business owners?

Or rubber stamping higher tolls on Hudson River crossings operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an agency he packed with his cronies?

Revisionist

A second story that gives a favorable spin to Christie's actions cites "weak economic growth" as the reason Christie "slashed legally required payments to the state pension system in recent years in order to balance the budget" (A-4).

But the governor is personally responsible for that weak growth as well as lagging tax revenues.

An editorial today blames Christie for not honoring the state's obligation to make full contributions to state pensions for teachers and other workers (A-10).

The editorial notes Christie claims making next year's full pension payments "would require raising the 7 percent sales tax to 10 percent or increasing income tax rates by 29 percent."

Of course, what Christie and The Record aren't saying is that a tax surcharge on millionaires would have raised about $1 billion a year for the last several years, making those pension payments and balancing the budget a lot easier.

Page 1

For the second day in row, Editor Martin Gottlieb leads the paper with a rabid coyote or possibly two (A-1).

The poor man. 

After years of practicing journalism for The New York Times, probably the best newspaper in the world, Gottlieb must find the suburbs really dull.

That likely explains his frequent slide into sensationalism.

Food promotions

The job description for food editor and food writer at The Record calls for someone who is willing to wildly exaggerate the greatness of restaurants and other food businesses that advertise in the Woodland Park daily.

That's the only explanation for why Food Editor Esther Davidowitz would call Callahan's a "legendary North Jersey hot dog restaurant" (A-1 and BL-1).

Maybe, she is referring to legendary heartburn or diarrhea.

Her Better Living cover story carefully omits describing the harmful preservatives, antibiotics and hormones that go into Callahan's deep-fried beef hot dogs.

Jon Hanson

I didn't see anything in The Record on this report from International Business Times:

"New Jersey rules require Republican Gov. Chris Christie's administration to cancel investment contracts with firms whose officials raise or donate money to the governor’s political campaigns. But his administration has paid more than $16 million in pension fees to the financial firm that was led by Christie’s chief fundraiser and top donor, Jon Hanson.

"The money -- far more than previously disclosed -- flowed to Hanson’s company, Prudential Financial, and its related funds that the state pension system has invested in. The new information, obtained through an open records request by International Business Times, comes as the Christie administration is facing a government investigation into whether it has fully disclosed all fees paid to financial firms -- some of whose executives have made donations to GOP groups backing Christie." 

Hanson is a close friend of the Borg publishing family, which owns North Jersey Media Group and its flagship daily, The Record.

The real estate company Hanson founded recently backed the sale-leaseback of NJMG's printing plant in Rockaway Township, a deal worth about $30 million.

Christie's pension-system deal raised questions years ago

Bergen Town Center in Paramus is a full-service shopping center only a couple of miles from Hackensack: Whole Foods Market, ShopRite, 24 Hour Fitness and Lowe's are among mall tenants.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's tabloid-like front page today has many readers wondering about the priorities of Editor Martin Gottlieb.

Gottlieb, a former New York Times editor who favors unusually long and complicated stories and analyses, could have devoted most or all of Page 1 to Governor Christie's 2016 budget and a second round of so-called pension-system reforms (A-1).

Instead, most of A-1 today is devoted to two sensational stories: 

"Bergen's most wanted," and three men who allegedly plotted to join ISIS. Big deal.

At the top of the page, a headline acknowledges for the first that Christie's budget speech and the pension plan he unveiled on Tuesday were far from the done deal portrayed by The Record and other media:

"Questions swirl on pensions"

Of course, every Christie policy since he took office in 2010 raised questions The Record papered over.

Instead, editors, columnists and reporters swallowed the GOP bully's "Reform Agenda," "Jersey Comeback," "Strong than the Storm" and other public relations campaigns hook, line and sinker.

That includes what is referred to as the 2011 "pension overhaul" Christie was hoping to take national in a campaign for the White House (A-3).

Imagine what he'd do to Medicare and Social Security in the unlikely event he gets the GOP nomination and wins the 2016 election. 

And why aren't the editors making a stink over Christie's silence on funding road and bridge repairs, and mass transit?

The conservative's refusal to raise the second-lowest gasoline tax in the nation to rehabilitate the state Transportation Trust Fund seems to have been endorsed by The Record, as were his many vetoes of a tax surcharge on millionaires.

'Shivering waifs'

Readers could be forgiven if they think today's Road Warrior column on Good Samaritans was written by a Dickens imitator (L-1).

Staff Writer John Cichowski's lead paragraph refers to unlucky drivers as "shivering waifs" and to roads as "always cold and luckless."

In summer, I suppose, drivers whose cars break down would be called "sweltering waifs."

How many thousands of readers just rolled their eyes when they saw this claptrap -- one of the worst pieces of journalism in many years.

The entire column is hung on the experience of one Michael Casapulla, who got a flat tire on the New Jersey Turnpike, pulled over and was surprised and delighted another man helped put the spare on his car.

Then, to pad this pathetic excuse for a commuting column, the demented Cichowski must have Googled "Good Samaritan," and decide to regurgitate every Good Samaritan he wrote about in old columns.

Cichowski didn't do what a real journalist would have done: 

Report on the long waits for AAA and other emergency road service, and tell readers if there are better programs out there.

Highway robbery

A story on a plan to install high-tech parking meters in Palisades Park doesn't mention they are in effect until 9 p.m., compared to the 6 p.m. expiration of most other towns.

Why didn't Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado ask Mayor James Rotundo why town officials are so greedy or speak to merchants and restaurant owners for their thoughts on whether the meters discourage visitors from patronizing their businesses?

End of BYO?

Staff Writer Joan Verdon needs to get out more.

How else to explain why her story on a bill to issue a new kind of restaurant liquor licenses completely ignores what impact that would have on the BYO tradition, which can make eating out in New Jersey such a good value (L-8).

Editors make readers work hard for pension reform 'facts'

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey acquired the PATH commuter rail line, above and below, in a 1962 deal that allowed the bi-state agency to build the original World Trade Center on land occupied by the railroad's terminal in lower Manhattan.

PATH, originally known as the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, hasn't been expanded since 1938, when a new 33rd Street station in Manhattan opened to the public. The Record's coverage of the Port Authority's bus and rail transit operations has been extremely thin, especially when compared to endless pieces on motorists, tolls and patronage.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record today tries to separate fact from fiction in Governor Christie's statements on the state pension system for teachers, police officers, firefighters and government workers (A-1).

But why do it in a political column, and why does Staff Writer Charles Stile front-load the piece on Page 1 with the same Christie misstatements the paper has been publishing forever?

Readers really have to work hard to find "the whole story" promised in the sub-headline, a testament to the sad state of editing and the Christie idolatry at the Woodland Park daily.

Page turner

Don't bother with the set up on the front page; go right to the continuation page (A-6) to learn Christie is blowing smoke on the health of the pension system and the need for benefit cuts, as the GOP bully has done on nearly every issue since he took office in 2010.

The 10th paragraph of Stile's rehash appears on A-6:

"And like most political campaigns from time immemorial, Christie's salesmanship will rely on fair doses of hyperbole and revisionism."

That should have been the burned-out reporter's lead paragraph, followed by specifics and, on the continuation page, the background that now appears on Page 1.

Here are more facts that Stile tries to bury:

• New Jersey has enough to cover the costs of retirees for the next 30 years.
• The Garden State also can't go bankrupt, because it is a sovereign state with the power to levy taxes as necessary.
• Christie is as guilty as his predecessors for shortchanging the pension system to the tune of $3 billion in 2011, $900 million in the last fiscal year and $1.6 billion in the current fiscal year.
• A reduction in benefits isn't the only option, if Christie raised taxes on affluent residents and corporations. He's vetoed the former four times.

Crashes, crime, tripe

Two crashes and one hit-run accident, involving an SUV hitting a bicyclist, help fill the pages of Local today, along with court and police news, a zoning hearing and a November referendum on open-space funding (L-1 to L-6).

The lead story on the front of the local-news section reports Superior Court Assignment Judge Peter E. Doyne is addressing a shortage of judges in Bergen County (L-1).

Of course, the story ignores the tremendous impact of delays and postponements on the legal fees paid by plaintiffs and defendants.

If it takes a civil case two years to drag through the courts, those fees multiply, enriching lawyers, some of whom go on to be judges.

Is that a Toyota?

The story on a woman driver losing control on Route 208 and hitting two police cruisers carries a photo caption that reads:

"The driver of the Toyota had serious injuries" (L-1).

But the two-door vehicle with a rear spoiler that is shown in the photo looks like a Pontiac, not a Toyota.

And in a departure from the ordinary, an Old Tappan man who drove his car through the front of one store and into another wasn't a senior citizen who mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal (L-6).

Kelly is a fool

Two days after Columnist Mike Kelly blamed unions for opposing money saving consolidation, a story reports Paterson's police union is supporting an initiative to team up with other departments to fight crime in the state's three largest cities (L-3).