Three reporters joined at the hip

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Head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes is so proud of the reporting triplets she hatched several years ago, she showers them with preferential treatment. Today, Staff Writers Monsy Alvarado, Jean Rimbach and Shawn Boburg hit the front page of  The Record of Woodland Park with yet another story on suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa -- this one about his business interests.


This might be Rimbach's first byline in 2010; in recent years, she has averaged one a year. Alvarado, who is assigned to cover Hackensack, wrote her last non-Police Department story on May 19 -- more than two months ago -- and her last Zisa story a month ago. She has been silent on the city's proposed budget and tax hike, and the new mayor, who was sworn in July 1. Boburg's byline also is rare.

Hasn't Sykes, Alvarado and the others done enough on lawsuits against Zisa, the criminal charges he faces, his conflicts of interests and his other legal problems? Don't Hackensack readers deserve basic information about who is running the city, the budget, taxes and related municipal matters?


Sykes is so gaga over her dearly beloved triplets she had them chasing former lawman Michael Mordaga for nearly three years. Then, she picked them up and comforted them after they fell on their faces with a single story so pathetically weak, Editor Frank Scandale wouldn't allow it on Page 1. And in view of all the crap Scandale does run on the front, that's saying something. 

The triplets came up with a lot more on Zisa, but got beaten to the punch by the Bergen County prosecutor.


The vast majority of Hackensack readers undoubtedly would be content with coverage of the Zisa case as it plays out in the courts, especially if they are going to be denied just about any other news about the city. Running pictures and a story about flooding in Hackensack, as the paper does today in the absence of anything else, is just an insult to readers.

Alvarado does have a second story today, on the Local front, about the suspension of three rookie Hackensack police officers. Again, she is a broken record at the broken Record.

I thought the proposal to carve up Teterboro was declared dead a few weeks ago . So why does the former Hackensack daily have a figure-filled A-1 story and an L-1 column on the plan today?

(Map: Bergen County, 1896.)