Hey, Monsy, you're killing us

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Where were you last night, Monsy Alvarado? Sleeping off all the hard work you've been doing to expose -- and expose, and expose -- suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa? Were you at the City Council meeting, for a change, at the behest of your puppeteer, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes? Was any action taken on the proposed budget and tax hike in one of Bergen County's most important communities?


I looked at the city's Web site, which is silent on the budget and last night's meeting. I called the city clerk, who was unavailable. I leafed through The Record of Woodland Park, but the only Hackensack news I found in Local was your story on lawmakers calling for Zisa's resignation from the Board of Elections. Wow. That's major news. Every Hackensack resident is dying to know what will happen. And that effort must have exhausted you, pobrecita.


If we can't rely on you -- the Hackensack reporter at the former Hackensack daily -- to keep us informed about basic city business, how do you justify your existence? How does Mother Hen Deirdre, who likes to keep her chicks close and dictate their every move? Where is Editor Frank Scandale? Where is Mac and his greedy successor, Publisher Stephen A. Borg?

Boy, the paper must be desperate for ad revenue to wrap advertising around the front page and Sports front today. All the hard work by the news, layout and copy editors is obscured, as a pharmacy lures customers with a free 12-pack of crappy soda for a $20 purchase. What did Scandale -- the petty dictator of Page 1 -- have to say? Well, we all know he hates news copy editors, and handcuffed them when he could.


The BP catastophe is front and center on A-1, as it should be, but why such a clunky story? Why use the overly long, flawed first paragraph from McClatchy Newspapers, and this tangled syntax:

...the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, which has gushed out of control for nearly two months ...

It's the reporter who is gushing out of control.

Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski  -- sworn enemy of mass transit commuters in North Jersey -- is really under a lot of pressure to produce three columns a week, and so bereft of ideas, his inconsequential piece on  L-1 today is about his vacation in New Mexico!

I appreciate the local food news in Better Living today -- a report on the Tenafly farmers' market and a Marketplace on barbecue sauces. But readers don't get reimbursed by the newspaper for eating (and eating, and eating), as Food Editor Bill Pitcher does, so we would really like to see prices included in all food stories. We want to know before we go. We don't have money to burn like the Borgs.

(Illustration: U.S. Census map of Hackensack)