These columnists should take a hike

Image by CanadaGood via Flickr

Am I the only one thoroughly bored with columnists John Cichowski, Mike Kelly and Bill Ervolino, whose "work" appears in The Record of Woodland Park today? Isn't it time for some fresh points of view?

Cichowski has been the paper's so-called Road Warrior for about six years, but it seems Kelly and Ervolino have been just taking up valuable newsprint space much longer than that. While they continue to try the patience of us all, keep in mind the lazy, incompetent editors at the former Hackensack daily got rid of their only black and Hispanic columnists, Lawrence Aaron and Miguel Perez.

Today, on the Local front, the Road Warrior continues to focus on narrow issues, taking to task the "selfish" drivers who use a shortcut through a quiet neighborhood in Upper Saddle River. If he's going to write about shortcuts, it would have been far more useful to far more people if he had provided one during the Route 80 east construction that caused delays of up to one hour. In general, though, he has ignored his core mission -- to write about commuting and mass transit. He should be ashamed of how he's ignored the pathetic local bus service in North Jersey. Where is his editor?

The headline over Mike Kelly's column today on the Opinion front is "Good idea gone awry," when it's clear he went awry years ago. His writing is full of cliches and hackneyed phrases, such as "mother of all jokes." Give me a break. Where is the man's editor, who allows this drivel in the paper?

"The developers did not deliver" and "misguided trust of private developers" is all the thunder he can muster for his tale about the incomplete Hudson River walkway, when he should have blasted greedy developers and the wealthy and selfish condo owners who have subverted the state's plan and are denying this magnificent stretch of riverfront to the public. There have been hundreds of instances in North Jersey where developers built roads, expanded intersections and spent huge sums to improve infrastructure around commercial developments. Yet this walkway is a disgrace.

Why is his language always so tame? Doesn't he realize that readers want their columnists to go out on a limb and express strong opinions? Well, you won't get them from sheepish Kelly. Some of the blame has to be laid on Assistant Assignment Editor Richard Whitby, onetime reader of Kelly's column before Whitby sent it over to the news copy desk, where me and the other copy editors avoided it like the plague. Whitby made a great show of pounding on his computer keyboard and loved to leer at the breasts of  the attractive female reporters who sat next to him as he edited their stories, but didn't do anything to improve Kelly's pablum.

The third disappointment is Bill Ervolino's column in Better Living. Bill is a nice guy, but who isn't sick of this man's feeble attempts at comedy and satire? God bless his family and friends and the readers who have tolerated him for so long. And maybe it's time Better Living editor Barbara Jaeger take a critical look at his nonsense.

Today's "local" news coverage is from Bridgewater, Somerville, Morristown, Pequannock and other places far from the heart of Bergen County as the paper is silent for another day on education, development and quality of life in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood, its core towns. Does anybody have any idea why a block of Anderson Street at Main Street in Hackensack has been closed for two months or more as heavy equipment and huge drills tear up the surface?

Did you get a good laugh out of the lame illustration on the Local front for a story on several towns sharing employees? The people shown look like models -- young models. If they are supposed to faithfully represent the demographic of employees in Westwood, Oradell and other towns, plaintiffs' employment lawyers should take note.

Talking about lawyers, inside the Local section, there is yet another story about a big out-of-court settlement, with no mention of  the attorney's share. Indeed, even the courthouse reporters, Kibret Markos and John Petrick, have stubbornly resisted news copy desk suggestions over the years that legal fees are an essential part of any story reporting multimillion settlements or jury awards. Court rules allow lawyers to take up to a third of  plaintiffs' money.