Rising local property taxes a scandal editors refuse to tackle

The Rainbow Castle Preschool building at 142-48 Main St. in Hackensack has been boarded up, months after the structure was evacuated and declared unsafe. The two-story building was damaged by a pile driver at the construction site of a 14-story residential-retail project at Main and Mercer streets, a major part of the city's downtown rehabilitation plan.

The preschool building was declared unsafe last July 27, and work on the apartment projet was suspended. The owner is negotiating with the builder for compensation. The Record has completely ignored the story.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR 

Who was responsible for the unflattering photo of Freeholder Mary Amoroso in The Record today?

Amoroso spent many years as a reporter and editor in the paper's feature department before she ran for office.

She's pictured on the Local front today with her mouth agape and right hand raised, and two men and a baby aren't even identified.

Of course, there is a lot more wrong in the story about the Bergen County Board of Freeholders, and reports on the makeup of town councils and school boards that have been running since the first day of the year.

Today, Steve Janoski, Philip DeVencentis and other reporters focus solely on politics -- which party gained the upper hand in the Nov. 8 elections.

Issues, such as the scandals of rising taxes and the burden of tax-exempt property, are totally ignored, as they have been for years.

Hackensack

In Hackensack, for example, the City Council says a property revaluation in 2016 managed to cut or stabilize taxes for two out of three homeowners.

Yet, the city still hasn't found money to pave streets that have been torn up for utility and sewage work, including two major thoroughfares, Main and State streets.

Despite delivering financial stability, the council and county seat remain behind the eight ball -- saddled with tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars in tax-exempt property owned by Bergen County, Hackensack University Medical Center, Fairleigh Dickinson University and others.

Those non-profit or tax-exempt entities shift the tax burden to homeowners and businesses.

And the budget of the Hackensack Board of Education, which accounts for 44% of a resident's tax bill, was higher than the entire city budget for at least the second year in a row.

The Record didn't even bother covering last April's election for three board members and the binding referendum on the budget.

Port Authority

Today's so-called Page 1 expose of a "$30 billion tug of war between New Jersey and New York" is another sensational report on an agency and resources the two states have fought over for nearly 100 years.

The Record's endless stories on this colossal patronage war allow editors and reporters to ignore the sad state of bus and rail transit under Governor Christie, whose first major act was to cancel a pair of Hudson River rail tunnels.

PA dates to 1921

When New York and New Jersey signed a compact in 1921 to create The Port of New York Authority -- giving it a mandate to develop and modernize the entire port district -- New Jersey was left out of the name.

In fact, the battle of the states over jurisdiction rights on the mighty Hudson River dates to the early 1900s.

The agency took over Port Newark in 1948, but the name wasn't changed to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey until 1972.

Editors somehow miss plan to fell 100 trees in parking lot

In 2009, North Jersey Media Group and The Record newsroom moved to 1 Garret Mountain Plaza in Woodland Park, above, from 150 River Street in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Gannett Co. executives were so busy redesigning The Record's print edition and website, as well as laying off staff, they missed a controversial story unfolding in the parking lot.

According to Page 1 of The Record today, editors failed to report that Mountain Development Co. applied for a permit to cut down more than 100 trees in the parking lots of their building, 1 Garret Mountain Plaza, and two other office towers in Woodland Park. 

That means the public and environmental groups didn't have a chance to comment on a plan to remove the trees to make way for solar panels to power two of the three buildings.

A photo caption on 1A today shows a tree service worker removing a tree "last week."

The story also reports the building operators paid $3o,000 so Woodland Park can plant 100 trees elsewhere in the borough.

Bruce Springsteen

Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen's comments on President-elect Donald J. Trump should have been on Page 1 today (3A).

"I mean, they're lies, they can't occur," Springsteen said of building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and other "Trump exaggerations," as the USA Today story puts it.

The story doesn't mention Springsteen refused to perform at the 2010 inauguration of one of his biggest fans, Governor Christie.

Food reporting

The Record appears to have given up all pretense of critical reporting on restaurants, food and nutrition.

The weekly restaurant review ended with the departure of Elisa Ung in November, more than nine years after she was hired.

Since then, editors have published "food crawl" stories that read like advertising.

Today's Better Living front focuses on "the best fireplace restaurants in North Jersey" or what the article calls "cozy local spots" (1BL).

"Baby, it's cold outside," writes Joanna Prisco, a freelancer who also owns a culinary business. "But inside these restaurants, the fire is blazing and fine food is cookin'."

Cheesy promotion

Most of Monday's Better Living front was devoted to Lisa Dosch, who has won "Best Cheesecake" at the New Jersey State Fair five years in a row.

Her cheesecakes, which happen to be served at her family's restaurant in Nyack, N.Y., cost $35 to $1,200 (with gold flake).

The enormous headline declared her, "Queen of Cheesecake."  

From a nutrition standpoint, that should have been, "Queen of Cholesterol."

Tens of thousands of readers watching their weight, cholesterol and sugar intake likely stared dumbfound at this promotion.

AARP appeals to political editors, columnists and reporters

AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins, who in 1980 was a voter outreach worker for the Ronald Reagan campaign (photo by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders).

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins has a message for columnist Charles Stile and every other Record staffer obsessed with keeping political scorecards in Trenton and Washington.

"When policy is debated only in terms of political gains and defeats, the American people lose," Jenkins wrote in the AARP Bulletin.

Although her column didn't mention the media, her message could be aimed at The Record and other news outlets.

"Instead of solutions, we get stalemates," she noted, describing what has happened so many times on important issues since Governor Christie took office in early 2010. 

"Let's unite behind our shared goals," was one of the headlines on Jenkins' column in the December issue of the monthly publication from the former America Association of Retired Persons.

Practical solutions

"Regardless of whom you supported in November, we share many of the same concerns," she wrote.

"How can we get our leaders [and newspaper editors and reporters] to put political partisanship behind them and come together?

"How can we as a country bring civility and public discourse back to our democracy? How can we disagree and still find common ground around the big issues that matter so much in our country?"

"Bipartisanship does not mean that Republicans and Democrats must agree on every issue," Jenkins noted. "But it does mean that they must be able to work together to find [practical] solutions."

Political Stile Columnist Charles Stile of The Record.

"But partisanship has reached such an uncivil extreme [in Trenton and Washington] that it is dividing our nation and prohibiting leaders from both political parties from coming together to do the people's work," Jenkins said.

"Far too often the politician's goal is not practical solutions, but political advantage."

Politics and news

Think of all the columns Stile has written about who gained the upper hand politically in the recent debates over Christie's book deal and removing the requirement for legal notices to be printed in newspapers.

The latter bill was designed to "punish state newspapers," The Record claims once again in an editorial today (7A).

In fact, this is another attempt by Gannett and other wealthy publishers to distract readers from an unwarranted government subsidy of millions of dollars for public notices no one reads.

See the politically slanted headline on 3A today:

"Congress sees mandate
to undo Obama's agenda"

Of course, for years, headline writers for The Record and other newspapers politicized universal health care as "Obamacare."

And why did an AP reporter who covered the opening of the long-delayed Second Avenue subway (8A) report a speech was given by "Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo?"

When journalism and politics collide, readers are big losers

Cartoonist Dave Granlund speaks for tens of millions of people across the United States.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In a major disservice to readers, Columnists Charles Stile and Mike Kelly of The Record aren't giving up their focus on partisan politics.

Stile's front-page piece discusses the coming political battles over a number of issues in Trenton and Washington, ignoring which outcomes would be good for the state and the nation (1A).

On the Opinion front, Kelly tackles Governor Christie's declining popularity, and such compelling questions as "can the Democrats [who control the state Legislature] find their mojo?"

'One nation'

The Record is part of Gannett's USA Today network, which explains why a woman in far-off Virginia is the first "exceptional American" featured in a new series, "One Nation" (1A and 1O).

The series will focus on someone "who unites, rather than divides, our communities" -- an apparent reference to the hate speech that got President-in-Waiting Donald J. Trump elected on Nov. 8.

Past and present

Today and Saturday, editors and reporters looked at the past year in "Remembering North Jerseyans we mourned in 2016" and forward in "17 people to watch in 2017."

On Friday's front page, an article discussed the medical basis for concluding that Debbie Reynolds died of a broken heart one day after the death of her daughter, actress Carrie Fisher.

But when Teaneck Mayor Lizette Parker died at 44 in 2016, as noted on Saturday's front page, The Record never attempted to explain in medical terms why she and so many other African-Americans die in their 40s and 50s.

'Oh shoot!'

In November, when Gannett launched an unannounced redesign of The Record, production of the paper was shifted to Neptune from Woodland Park.

As a result, errors have soared to a new level, especially in photo captions.

On Saturday, probably because of the enormous amount of space devoted to a fire in a garbage compactor chute in Paterson, one error jumped out.

"Chute" was spelled "shoot" in the caption for an enormous photo showing firefighters in front of a high-rise on Presidential Boulevard (3L on Saturday).

A second photo caption that day, this one on 6L, apparently was taken from NorthJersey.com, because it is in the present tense: 

"A wrong-way accident is causing traffic problems on Route 21 ....[italics added]." 

Also, the day of the accident is given as "Friday morning on Dec. 30, 2016."  

Group of the day

The editors continue to run Page 1 stories on groups:

On Thursday, a so-called Analysis declared environmentalists are "optimistic" about 2017. 

On Friday, adoptees were said to be looking forward to Jan. 1 and a new state law calling for the release of their birth certificates, which could identify their mothers.

Food crawl

Ridgewood and Englewood are two Bergen County towns known for their restaurants, but Friday's "food crawl" in the Better Living section suggested readers jump into their cars for a much longer trip to Nyack, N.Y.

The article carries the byline of Liz Johnson, and guess what, she is the former food editor at a Gannett newspaper who lives in Nyack, and helped conduct a similar food crawl in the town last summer.

How convenient for her, and how inconvenient for Bergen County readers.

Another problem is that Johnson provides no prices for any of the dishes she sampled at four restaurants.