GOP politics dominate today's headlines

A tractor-trailer holding up traffic on Summit Avenue at Passaic Street, an antiquated two-lane road that is a notorious traffic bottleneck in Hackensack. Passaic is narrow and has no turn lanes on either side of Summit, unlike its intersection with Prospect Avenue and other cross streets.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

On Page 1 of The Record today, GOP bully Chris Christie endorses Tea Party crackpot Steve Lonegan's bid for a U.S. Senate seat from New Jersey -- a political marriage made in hell.

On the Local front, the Hackensack City Council retains City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono, despite his ties to the powerful Zisa family, which ruled Hackensack for decades.

And council members strongly suggested Republican loyalist Anthony Rottino will get the new post of director of economic development (L-1).

So much for Hackensack's non-partisan municipal elections.

But The Record's error-prone copy desk published an incorrect headline on the continuation page (L-6), catching Production Editor Liz Houlton napping.

"Hackensack retains key official"

The main headline on L-1, above, refers to Lo Iacono (LOW-yack-a-no), the city manager.

But on the continuation page, the headline says:

Rottino: Retained by council

Horsey set

What do you make of the silly front-page story about the imminent removal of the carousel at Paramus Park mall, and the social-media campaign to save it (A-1)?

Another, larger carousel is available a few miles away at Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, though the story by Staff Writers Evonne Coutros and Joan Verdon conveniently omits that fact.

Why is this story on Page 1?

The mother of one bratty kid actually has the nerve to call the 18-seat Paramus Park carousel "a Bergen County icon," and The Record actually has the nerve to print the inane comment.

Another 'icon'

Today, one of The Record's "icons," Road Warrior John Cichowski, calls the Manhattan end of the George Washington Bridge a "lip" (L-1).

Imagine if you can get that "lip" to meet the other "lip" in Fort Lee? Certainly, they'd say, "Moron."

On a rare trip away from his computer, Cichowski reports on the inhospitable bus terminal at the Manhattan end of the bridge, and its delayed renovation.

He doesn't say whether commuters have any more success getting a seat on a bus during the rush hour than those going to the midtown bus terminal or whether the uptown terminal has seats that are any more comfortable than the torture devices downtown.

That's the real story: 

The continuing lack of commitment to mass transit by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which encourages commuters to drive and pay the exorbitant tolls that keep the wasteful bistate agency going.

Column hog

In his column last Friday, Cichowski "made-up perspectives, and his personal, unprofessional blogs in The Record continue to contradict facts, state statutes, studies, experts and rational experiences," according to a concerned reader.

Read the full e-mail to management on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Assessing the Road Warrior