More Hackensack news, but is all of it accurate?

The Bergen County homeless shelter in Hackensack serves three free meals a day, inviting the homeless to stay in the city, walk the streets and use the parks all day long, Police Director Mike Mordaga says. And, he says, 95% of the homeless encountered by police have criminal records.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The victory of a reform City Council slate in the May 14 municipal election has brought a renewed focus on Hackensack news at The Record of Woodland Park.

But as today's Page 1 takeout on the Police Department and the homeless demonstrates, readers don't always get the full story (A-1).

The homeless have been a problem in Hackensack for decades, even before Bergen County built a shelter on South River Street, between the county jail and Costco Wholesale.

Free meals

Now, the shelter Hackensack fought but couldn't stop serves three free meals a day, inviting the homeless to hang around all day, Police Director Mike Mordaga says.

Mordaga says he has asked Hackensack University Medical Center to staff a room at the shelter to cut down on his officers having to be involved in transporting the homeless to the emergency room.

Not new

Today's story reports Mordaga is cracking down on quality-of-life crimes "at a time when the city is investing in a major downtown rehabilitation." 

But it doesn't say the disturbing presence of the homeless on Main Street has been a problem for many years before he assumed the job in February.

And the story doesn't even hint at the high level of criminality in the homeless police are dealing with, Mordaga says.

Mordaga estimates 95% of the homeless whose backgrounds are checked by police have criminal records.

Major crimes include murder, kidnapping and sexual assault, he says, noting the homeless use city parks where children play.

No comparison

And comparing Hackensack's homeless to the cities of Englewood and Passaic, as the story does, is faulty: 

Those communities don't have anywhere near the number of homeless in Hackensack.

Errors in story

Mordaga says there are errors in today's Page 1 story.

Meanwhile, 2 recent stories about Hackensack contained other errors, prompting readers to ask whether they can trust the reporting and editing at The Record.

Reporters like Staff Writer Hannan Adely have an added burden to be accurate:

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, her supervisors, spend all their time indoors in far off Woodland Park, and know little or nothing about Hackensack.

And the paper's copy editors have long been discouraged from fact-checking and fixing poorly written stories and columns.

Their job is to spell-check and slap a headline and photo caption on whatever they are working on, and go on to the next story.

Governor Money Bags

The A-3 story on Governor Christie and Superstorm Sandy TV commercials raises a lot of unanswered questions -- primarily, why isn't this scandal on Page 1 and why didn't The Record's own staffers uncover it?

The Record files numerous public records requests, but apparently sat on its hands after an Oradell ad agency lost out on a contract for the "Stronger Than the Storm" TV commercials.

The state contract went to MWW, a politically active public relations agency in East Rutherford, and a subcontractor, even though their bid was more than $2 million higher than the Sigma Group in Oradell.

A photo of the TV ad that runs with the story -- from the Asbury Park Press -- suggests that New Jersey has the nation's fattest and ugliest governor -- great public relations for the shore.

'Dad' mystery

Today's Road Warrior column focuses on Staff Writer John Cichowski's "Dad," who is 97, but who is not named (L-1).

Cichowski interviewed his father to jazz up a dry rewrite of an AAA survey.