Hackensack school board is a lesson in politics

Hackensack Board of Education member Jason Nunnermacker, center, is running for City Council in the May 14 election on a slate that has sent out false attack mailings about its opponents. He is flanked by interim Schools Superintendent Joseph Abate, left, and Timothy J. Hoffman, 19, who was elected to the board on April 16 by a ridiculously small minority of registered voters.

The superintendent of Hackensack schools and his staff moved to a building at 191 Second St. about 3 years ago, but the sign out front, above, still does not reflect their occupancy, as if they are deliberately trying to hide from parents, and there are no visitor spots in the parking lot.

The word "SUPERINTENDENT" on the door isn't visible from the street. Parents have to play "find the superintendent," because older phone books still list 355 State St. (the Middle School) as his address and contain obsolete phone numbers. A current phone book doesn't even list the superintendent's office under Hackensack schools.

The Hackensack Board of Education's policy on political activity doesn't bar an active board member from running for City Council, the board's attorney said Monday night.

School trustee Jason Nunnermacker is a member of the Hackensack Coaltion for Open Government, a slate of candidates seeking election on May 14.

There is plenty of evidence the slate is backed and financed in part by Lynne Hurwitz, the city's Democratic boss and the power behind the Zisa family dynasty that is so desperately trying to hold onto power in "Zisaville."

At the board's meeting in Hackensack High School, attorney Richard Salkin objected when independent City Council candidate Victor E. Sasson accused Nunnermacker and his slate of lying about their opponents in attack mailings.

Sasson asked if that was appropriate behavior for a board member, who is supposed to set an example for students.

The Open Government slate already set a poor example for children when its lead candidate -- former high school resource officer and retired police detective Kenneth Martin -- was caught by a store surveillance camera stealing signs put up by the Citizens for Change slate.

Sasson and other members of the public get only 3 minutes to speak before the board, compared with 5 minutes before the council.

Public jobs 

Salkin has a second public job -- municipal prosecutor. And he's a former city attorney, a position he was appointed to by the powers that be.

The attorney also has escorted Nunnermacker and his running-mates to at least one council meeting, where the candidates were overheard discussing where to get the best empanada in Hackensack.

When they encounter Salkin, many taxpayers see red -- the color of his modest Toyota SUV. 

Do they have a minyan?

Sasson also asked if Nunnermacker's colleague on the board, former Councilman Mark Stein, is an official at Temple Beth El on Summit Avenue, but Salkin again objected, saying that was "personal."

The synagogue apparently has been rented by Nunnermacker and other members of his slate to meet congregants on Thursday night, and the other six council candidates are excluded. 

"The board prohibits the use of school premises and school time ... for political purposes," according to board policy.

Nunnermacker appears to have violated the spirit of the regulation when he and other members of his slate mailed campaign material to an unknown number of teachers and support staff on a "confidential" list.

Is there any good reason to vote for Nunnermacker? Hackensack's board spends more per student than Ridgewood, and has little to show for it.
 
'Instant' heroin series

Beginning with Friday's "major heroin bust" on Page 1 and ending with today's report on parents facing "the agony ... of a child's heroin addiction," The Record appears to have come up with an "instant" series.

Were all of the stories coordinated with Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli, who erroneously released a photo of a Fair Lawn woman who was not charged with any wrongdoing (see the embarrassing "Retraction" on A-2 today)?

Two corrections also appear on A-2 today, but the paper can only blame them on the incompetence of Production Editor Liz Houlton and her sleepy copy editors.

Dog news

A photo on L-2 today seems to say Teaneck spent $20,000 on a dog park, but nobody -- and no canine -- is using it.

Were the editors so desperate to fill space in the Local news section that they couldn't send the photographer back for a shot filled with people and dogs? 

The Record misses biggest Christie story

How many of these will Governor Christie be able to down now that he has had surgery to stop him from overeating? They were served on Sunday during a fund-raiser in The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack.

The Record's rotund editors have ignored Governor Christie's weight problems -- lest they be forced to confront the uncomfortable truth about their own food obsessions.

The Woodland Park daily has never even reported what New Jersey and schools in Hackensack and many other communities are doing to fight the child-obesity epidemic.

Now, the New York Post is claiming an exclusive, reporting that Christie "secretly underwent lap-band stomach surgery to aggressively slim down for the sake of his wife and kids."

Here is the link to The Post's story on its Web site:


GOP fat cat has surgery 


Christie has refused to disclose his weight in interviews with both national and New Jersey media, but David Letterman has joked the governor hit a hefty 400 pounds.

Doughnut patrol

If you doubt police in Wyckoff and other wealthy Bergen towns have too much time on their hands and eat too many doughnuts, check out the big photo on the front of today's Local news section (L-1).

On L-2, Staff Writer Hannan Adely reports the school district and teachers union have reached a tentative contract agreement in Hackensack.

There is a lot of local news in today's section, making readers wonder whether the editors held a bunch of stories for publication today.

But head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes still needed a photo of a refrigerated produce truck the driver deliberately overturned to make fruit salad (L-3).
     
Unflattering

The cover photo of the May 2013 issue of (201) magazine shows a clearly overweight Lisa Oz standing in her Cliffside Park home in a most unflattering pose -- with her right hand on her hip and her right leg off to the side, as if it is permanently broken.

Of course, her multimillionaire husband is Mehmet Oz, a doctor who can't stop lecturing Americans on healthy eating, although he probably has never stepped foot in a supermarket or tried to make sense of food labels.
  

Hackensack donors stray far from Main Street

Hackensack High School.

A fund-raiser for Hackensack High School students on Sunday offered food, wine and non-alcoholic drinks from more than 35 restaurants, caterers, bakers and liquor stores, but only eight were from the city itself.

And despite the participation of the Hackensack Main Street Business Alliance, a public-private partnership, only five of them are on or near Main Street, the struggling shopping district that has yet to recover from the pullout of North Jersey Media Group and The Record in 2009.

Tickets to "The Taste in Hackensack" were $75, and raised money for the Hackensack Blue & Gold Scholarship Fund. 

In addition, there were raffles, including a $100 ticket to win an all-expenses-paid Indy 500 weekend and "admission to the private Alfred Sanzari Enterprises Suite at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway."

The event was held at The Shops at Riverside, and there was no mention of the alliance, also known as the Upper Main Alliance, in an entertainment program listing sponsors.

Alliance budget

The $360,000 alliance budget is included in Hackensack's overall budget, and the city and the business group share a $64,000-a-year employee, Albert H. Dib, who is the group's executive director.

The $360,000 is raised through an assessment on Main Street businesses, in a limited zone between Atlantic Street and Clinton Place, that appears as a surcharge on their property taxes.

That surcharge is undoubtedly passed along to city residents and other customers as a cost of doing business.

The alliance was formed in 2004, but empty storefronts, traffic congestion and other problems continue to stifle the revival of Main Street. 

Some of the Hackensack businesses at Sunday's fund-raiser, including Solari's and Fusion Empanada, are outside the alliance zone.

Merna Georges, owner of Main Dish in Hackensack.

Ghost town

Main Dish, which replaced the shuttered Naturally Good, is in the zone, and served delicious mini crab cakes on Sunday.

But owner Merna Georges says she is open only for breakfast and lunch, because Main Street is too quiet in the evenings.

Dos Cubanos, which is on Route 4 in Paramus, served wonderful ceviche and a salad with diced fruit, but Hackensack's own Cuban restaurant, Habana Casual Cafe on Main Street, wasn't represented. 

Victor E. Sasson, editor of Eye on The Record, joined other Hackensack City Council candidates in attending the event.


Today's paper 

What do you think gripped readers more -- the cover price doubling to $1 or the second installment of a Page 1 series on white suburban heroin addicts?

As a former employee, Sasson pays $58.50 a year for 7-day home delivery -- or about 16 cents a copy -- compared to the regular price of $229.49.

Dissing Hackensack

The Local news section continues to ignore the City Council campaign in Hackensack, including false attack mailings by the Coalition for Open Government.

The coalition is backed by Lynne Hurwitz, the city's Democratic boss and the power behind the Zisa family political dynasty that has controlled Hackensack for decades, holding it up for ridicule as "Zisaville."

The lead coalition candidate, Kenneth Martin, a retired police detective, will stand trial for removing signs put up by a reform slate, Citizens for Change.

Another coalition member is Jason Nunnermacker, an active Board of Education member whose council campaign would appear to violate the board's own regulations against political activity.

In its latest attack mailing, the coalition lied when it claimed Kathy Canestrino, a Citizens for Change candidate, was involved in a lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Sasson plans to file a complaint with the Hackensack superintendent of schools over a coalition mailing sent teachers and support staff on a "confidential" list, in violation of school policy.

Black heroin users don't concern prosecutor

This sign is planted on Hackensack's Passaic Street, near Summit Avenue, where a bus and another vehicle collided on Thursday. The lack of turn lanes on Passaic creates a traffic bottleneck during the morning and afternoon rush hours.

In running 88 photos of heroin-possession suspects today, the top editors of The Record -- all of whom are white -- overlooked one thing.

Apparently, no photos of black heroin users are shown on Page A-6, meaning Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli, like the editors, couldn't care less about them.

That's no surprise, given Molinelli's refusal to release information in the fatal police shootings of two African-Americans, Rickey McFadden of Leonia  and Malik Williams of Garfield.

Molinelli must be the first public official to file harassment charges against a citizen -- a man who called him and demanded information about the Williams shooting.  

Tabloid news 

But let's get back to today's sensational, tabloid-like front page from ex-New York Timesman Marty Gottlieb, editor of The Record since late January 2012.

"Suburbia's deadly secret" is the big, black headline over the Page 1 report on the "rising death toll" among suburbanites who use heroin, which many buy from evil black drug dealers in Paterson.

"Since the beginning of 2011, heroin has claimed at least 50 lives in Bergen County," according to the fourth paragraph.

Fifty? Haven't as many people died in traffic accidents or got run down by speeders and stop-sign runners?

Isn't the lack of traffic-law enforcement really "suburbia's deadly secret"? 

You can't tell from Road Warrior John Cichowski, who today offers another in a series of columns on tree trimming and tree clearing in Sandy's wake (L-1).

Editors loves GOP

More bias is evident on the front page in the Political Stile column, which suggests Chris Christie is "the nation's most popular governor -- and certainly among its most visible."

Yes, that last part is true: Christie is visible from the Moon. 

Gottlieb keeps on putting the Charles Stile column on Page 1, even though he knows readers are sick and tired of all the "politics" the media inject into election coverage, instead of focusing on issues.

But issues bore editors and reporters -- from municipal reporters to all the swells in the Trenton State House press corps.

At least the second slanted article about the  gubernatorial election appears on the front of the "Opinion" section:  

Ex-Republican flunky Carl Golden's assessment of Democratic candidate Barbara Buono.

The headline, "An uphill battle," describes Buono's chances with New Jersey media, all of which seem to be in love with Christie, hero of the 1 percent. (O-1).

Dissing Hackensack

In Local, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, could barely manage to fill 3-plus pages of local news, and still needed the photo of a minor car engine-compartment fire (L-3).

In Better Living, food coverage is missing, but there are 2 pages of ads for Mother's Day Dining (BL-6 and BL-7).

Reader exposes flaws

A concerned reader has sent yet another e-mail to management, highlighting errors in the May 1 Road Warrior column, which John Cichowski seems to write off the top of his head: 

"Why doesn't The Record management baby-sit every Road Warrior column to prevent his hazardous and mistake-riddled reporting?

"Why are readers subjected, as they were in his May 1 column, to Road Warrior's mistaken, misleading analysis, and reporting on fatalities, injuries, and need for police at road work zones?

"In response to a reader's question, he indicated it will be acceptable for bicyclists to use the Pulaski Skyway after construction is completed, just like they could before construction started.  How incompetent and deadly do the Road Warrior answers have tobe before there is a retraction of another answer that is NOT based on any facts?  Bicyclists were banned prior to construction and will be banned afterwards since it is unsafe.

"The Road Warrior devotes most of his column to providing irrelevant statistics in addressing similar readers' questions:

"'Why must police baby-sit construction and utility roadside jobs for safety since it also adds considerable cost to a project that is passed along to consumers and taxpayers?'

"Road Warrior NEVER makes any substantiated correlation between the use of full-time police babysitters at road work zones and prevention of fatalities and injuries.

"Road Warrior doesn't seem to realize NJ's Move Over Law is still in effect if there are construction safety flashing lights. There is NO need for flashing lights from a police car."

For the full text, see the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers: 

Arrest the Road Warrior and throw away the key