A kid you never heard of gets better A-1 play than Obama

WHY OUR TAXES ARE SO HIGH: On Wednesday afternoon, an incident involving a school bus near the monument in Englewood drew a large response, including an ambulance from Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, above; a rescue unit from the city's Fire Department, hospital paramedics and at least three police cars to close streets, below. The police cars are not shown.

In the past two decades, The Record's local editors have been derelict in failing to report on the wasteful duplication of services in home-rule towns. Meanwhile, the editorial page should be calling for a salary cap on police chiefs, and much more cooperation among towns to save money and lessen the impact on property tax payers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Deirdre Sykes is only the second woman to hold the top editing job at The Record, but she is proving to be no different than her sports-obsessed male predecessors.

Can you imagine the discussion at Wednesday afternoon's news meeting, where editors from news, sports, business and features sit down and decide story placement and play, including what should appear on today's front page, the most important in the paper?

The news editors promote President Obama's historic visit to a mosque amid all the hate speech against Muslims, including Syrian refugees who want to settle in North Jersey, but the sports editor is itching to be heard: 

"OK. I have a better story. There's this black kid, Rashan Gary, a high school student we like to call 'North Jersey's football titan ....'"

Collectively, the other editors in the room say, "Who?"   

Yet, today's front page is dominated by "Who?"

And Obama ends up at the bottom of Page 1, under a bunch of Hasidic Jews who rescued a George Washington Bridge jumper. 

Ignoring readers

Is there anything else in today's paper to interest the majority of readers?

Why run a Page 1 follow-up on "dismal" test scores?

At least Sykes had the good sense to run Governor Christie's campaign crap from New Hampshire on A-3, instead of A-1, but that means the continuing crisis over New Jersey transportation funding is buried today (A-4).

Local news?

The Local front resembles a police blotter again, one of Sykes' specialties when she was head assignment editor.

There are an astounding 14 Law & Order stories in the thin-local news section.

And why is a long story from Washington on proposals to ease the burden of college loans and provide two years of free community college buried deep in Local (L-6)?

That would have fit well on A-3, and to hell with the governor who has said to hell with New Jersey.

Uber alles?

On the first Business page, another staff-written story on Uber continues to hide the exploitation of drivers (L-7).

Staff Writer Richard Newman simply regurgitates the company line:

"Uber promises to pay a gross fare of $15 an hour during slow periods or $20 an hour in busy periods, not including Uber's commission...."

Why not mention the size of the commission (Uber gets at least 20% of the fare), that tips are included in the fare; and that drivers use their own cars, and pay for gas, insurance and maintenance?

Traveling light

A Jill Schensul column offering a guide to travelers on the Zika virus appears on the Better Living front today.

Contrast that with the travel editor's usually frivolous column in her own section, which offers little practical advice on getting the best bang out of your travel dollars.

Editors cranking up Christie P.R. machine on front page

Parking meters that accept payment by credit card have arrived in Hackensack. This one is next to the Atlantic Street Park. The new rate is 25 cents for 15 minutes, two to four times the cost at some older meters.

Not far away from the new meters, several copies of The Record of Woodland Park were delivered to an Atlantic Street law office by throwing them onto the snow or sidewalk.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Like her predecessor, Editor Deirdre Sykes is doing her best to keep alive Governor Christie's doomed campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.

Today's Page 1 headline and story on the GOP bully downplaying his pathetic 10th-place finish in Iowa essentially repeats the same upbeat message readers saw in Tuesday's A-1 column from the shameless Charles Stile.

Today's story also corrects Stile, without acknowledging the veteran reporter goofed (or was it deliberate?) when he claimed Christie finished seventh in the hayseed state's caucuses on Monday.

Stile was quick to climb into bed with Christie right after he took office in 2010, and he's stuck with him, even as he waged war on the middle class and used more than 500 vetoes to get his way with the Democratic majority in the state Legislature. 

Stile's columns and today's story by Staff Writer Dustin Racioppi amount to little more than public relations for Christie, who has turned his back on New Jersey to pursue his selfish political ambitions.

Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin should be demanding Christie's resignation, not waiting for the results of the New Hampshire primary (A-10).

On Monday, only one lane was open on Main Street in Hackensack near the railroad tracks. So much utility work has been done on Main the roughly patched downtown street is one of the bumpiest stretches in Bergen County, from the state courthouse to Euclid Avenue.

Test scores

A story on public school students failing new state tests discloses the percentage of Hackensack students in Grades 3-8 and 9-12 to meet expectations was among the lowest in Bergen and Passaic counties (A-1 and A-6).

This despite the city's free-spending school board approving a $106 million budget that exceeded the city's own last year.

The graphic on test results in Hackensack is the first news Sykes has published on city schools in one, possibly two years.

And as she did when she was running the local-news section, Sykes devotes a huge amount of space to first responders doing their job, in this case saving a 9-year-old girl "trapped by smoke and fire" in Mahwah (A-1).

This story falls into the same category as endless reporting on police, fire and EMT training; and photos at council meetings where cops join the force or are promoted.

They aren't news, and have no place in a paper that does such a poor job of reporting on how well or poorly our towns are being run.

Local news?

Readers of Local haven't been told which assignment editors succeeded Sykes and Dan Sforza, who was promoted to managing editor on Friday.

But today's section, dominated by sensational crime news, is more of the same old crap the lazy, incompetent assignment editors jammed down readers' throats for years (L-1).

More Law & Order news appears on L-3, including the earth-shaking news Harrington Park is seeking a $1.48 million federal grant to replace an aging firetruck and buy gear for volunteers.

Road Warrior John Cichowski has turned his commuting column into anything but (L-1).

Instead of writing about crowded buses and trains, the hopelessly confused Cichowski churned out an entire column today on taxis outside the Secaucus Junction rail station.

Artery clogging

There is nothing like artery clogging butter to ruin a heart-healthy fish dish, but don't tell that to Food Editor Esther Davidowitz, who today promotes a smoked sablefish risotto prepared by a chef at a Manhattan restaurant (BL-2).

Extra-virgin olive oil is the smart choice, but more butter appears in a pasta recipe from clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson in Upper Saddle River (BL-2).

All but one of the items in FYI, a feature claiming to report "what's new, what's happening, what's trending in the North Jersey dining scene," appear to be taken straight from press releases put together at great expense by public relations firms (BL-2).  

The three food features on BL-2 today amount to the crumbs readers have been thrown on Wednesdays since Publisher Stephen A. Borg folded The Record's award-winning Food section.

Main Street high-rise construction driving everyone crazy

A diesel-powered pile driver is hammering steel beams deep into the ground at Main and Mercer streets in Hackensack, above and below, where a 14-story apartment building will rise, only a block or so from the old headquarters of The Record. The Borg family's property along River Street has been approved for 700 residential units, but they haven't announced a development deal yet. 

An employee of Rainbow Castle Preschool, which is next to the site, said the noise is driving everyone crazy, but that the children have grown accustomed to the repetitive thud that can be felt inside the building.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If you walk along the 100 block of Main Street in Hackensack, you can smell the diesel fumes and hear the loud crashing noise from a pile driver on the biggest construction site in the city.

Everyone from children attending a preschool next to the enormous pit to lawyers down the block are being driven crazy by the constant hammering of steel beams into the ground.

This site, where a 14-story apartment building will rise, is the second major project in Hackensack's ambitious downtown rehabilitation plan.

The first, at 94 State St., has already started leasing, according to a sign on the 222-unit residential building.

"You can hear the constant hammering from the pile driver at the big site," says a lawyer whose office is on the same block. "I can hardly concentrate."

At Merit Trophy, employees had to clear the shelves, because "things were falling," the lawyer said

On Sunday, The Record's Better Living section promoted a cranberry chocolate chip ice cream sold at Ice Cream by Mike on Main Street in Hackensack, but the store was closed, below.

The sign says, "Closed for repairs." 

'New life'

The 382-unit building at 150-170 Main St. is expected to take up to 30 months to build, and will include 7,500 square feet of new retail with outdoor seating and dining. 

The storefronts, which will face Main Street, are "expected to breath new life into the area," city officials say.

That may be the only consolation in view of the impact the construction noise is having on established businesses, law offices and restaurants. 

Art of Spice, an Asian Indian restaurant, is across the street at 159 Main St., but it's closed on Mondays.

At Casual Habana Cafe, 125 Main St., where a $10 all-you-can-eat lunch buffet is served, employees said the pile driver didn't bother them or customers because the music playing on the sound system drowned out the noise.

Rainbow Castle Preschool is on the edge of the construction pit.

A sea change?

On Monday, only a couple of days after The Record named a new editor, readers did a double take at all of the municipal news filling Local, a section that has been dominated by Law & Order news for far too long.

Most of the stories were from Teaneck, Bogota, Leonia and other Bergen County towns, and stories about Passaic County towns appeared on L-6.

Instead of the usual gee-whiz shot of a vehicle rollover on L-3, a beautifully composed photo by freelancer Jim Anness showed a man sitting on a bench in brilliant sunshine, his feet in snow, with the Hudson River and George Washington Bridge in the background. 

One step back

Unfortunately, today's Local section seems to be a return to business as usual, with the third sensational story in a row on a husband charged with killing his wife all over L-1.

But the section also contains two local obituaries (L-1 and L-6), and municipal stories from a number of towns.

What hasn't changed is that Editor Deirdre Sykes and Managing Editor Dan Sforza continue their boycott of Hackensack news.

Went south?

Todd South, the reporter formerly assigned to the city, was promoted to another beat, and Sykes and Sforza haven't replaced him.

That may mean the newsroom is short of staff as a result of Publisher Stephen A. Borg's many economies -- from moving printing of the paper out of Hackensack to a major downsizing to completely abandoning the city in 2009.

Borg also has denied raises to newsroom employees for more than 5 years, even as he and his family have prospered.

The wage freeze has been cited as a factor in the recent departure of two star reporters, Shawn Boburg and wife Stephanie Akin.

Page 1 politics

In another bad sign, Sykes is continuing her predecessor's obsession with politics, wasting a huge amount of front-page space on the Iowa caucuses today and Monday.

An A-1 story or column from Iowa by political reporter Charles Stile appears both days, but a reader of the paper says his story on Governor Christie's dismal showing is not accurate.

Stile, the paper's chief Christie apologist, claims the GOP bully "was tied for seventh place" with three other also-rans (A-1); the reader and other media say Christie finished 10th.

Now, Stile will try to convince readers Christie has a far better chance in New Hampshire. 

But with crackpot Ted Cruz's victory in Iowa, the presidential election is all but decided, because America certainly will pick a Democrat to move the country forward over a Tea Party conservative who wants to turn back the clock.

What you see when you're not driving and stuck in traffic

Glistening in the afternoon sun, VIA is a new residential building at West 57th Street and West Street in Manhattan, as seen from aboard a Hackensack-bound NJ Transit bus on Boulevard East.

After the blizzard, uncleared snow had drivers improvising a new form of angle parking along Boulevard East.

Looking from West 42nd Street, there were plenty of seats available for a sun bath last week in this Times Square pedestrian plaza in Manhattan.

At the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, the first-floor bathrooms are being renovated, and commuters can look forward to the opening of a Jamba Juice, next to Starbucks, below.

These National Guard members were carrying only sidearms on Jan. 21.

Navigating Bergen County's antiquated street system, drivers spend precious minutes stuck behind other vehicles making turns, aggravating air pollution, because turn lanes are as few and far between as competent transportation reporters and columnists at The Record of Woodland Park.

This morning on Route 4 east, thousands of insane commuters ignored mass-transit alternatives and chose the crapshoot of driving into the city, usually alone. From 50 mph, 60 mph and 70 mph, traffic came screeching to a halt near Jones Road in Englewood -- my exit.