Borg family's interests trump civility at public meetings

Richard E. Salkin speaking at Tuesday night's City Council meeting in Hackensack. Salkin doesn't identify himself as the attorney for the city's Board of Education, which is allied with the Zisa family and the local Democratic Party that lost the 2013 municipal election. A frequent critic of the current council, he is usually quoted in The Record without that title, the same "anonymity" the paper accords to members of the losing council slate.

The five-member City Council with City Attorney Thomas P. Scrivo, left, and City Manager David R. Troast, front.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Borg family's progress on selling 19.7 acres near downtown Hackensack to a developer dominates The Record's Local news section today.

Staff Writer Todd South, who covered Tuesday night's City Council meeting, wrote a story that ignores unanimous passage of an ordinance governing public comment.

The "Rules of Order" were introduced on Nov. 25 after critics of the council -- principally those who lost the 2013 municipal election -- launched one abrasive attack after another against officials for just about every hire and proposal they made, including a downtown performance space.

Many of the attacks were reported in The Record without identifying the critics as Zisa family allies and members of the local Democratic Party, which lost the 2013 municipal election to a slate of reformers led by John P. Labrosse Jr., who is now mayor.

The weekly Hackensack Chronicle reported what happened at a Nov. 10 council meeting The Record didn't cover:

"Another incident in which the First Amendment right was brought into question took place at the Nov. 10 council meeting, when resident [and Board of Education Attorney] Richard Salkin, who is a vocal critic of a number of the council members, in particular of councilwoman Rose Greenman, referred to her as a "sociopath."

"This allegation drove Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino -- who was presiding over the meeting in the absence of the mayor -- to say she will not tolerate name calling.

"I'm not going to tolerate that," she said. "Address people with respect, that's all I ask. We are respecting you, respect us back."

Profit motive

The 150 River St.  parcel and adjacent property is the former headquarters of North Jersey Media Group and its flagship daily newspaper, The Record, which prospered in Hackensack for more than 110 years.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg abandoned Hackensack in 2009, moving The Record's newsroom to a nondescript office building overlooking Route 80 in Woodand Park.

A few years earlier, Borg moved the printing of The Record and Herald News to a printing plant in Rockaway Township, and ordered a major downsizing of the staff in 2008. 

Those two decisions seemed to set into motion a precipitous decline in the quality of editing and reporting at a newspaper still referred to as "The Bergen Record."

The 19.7 Hackensack acres are expected to fetch $20 million or more.

City study

On Tuesday night, the City Council approved a study to determine whether the NJMG parcel should be declared as an "area in need of redevelopment," a designation that could entitle any developer to tax breaks for up to 30 years, The Record reports (L-1).

The lead paragraph of the story says the property, two blocks east of Main St. in Hackensack, is 20 acres, but the second paragraph calls it a "19.7-acre site."

Labrosse, the mayor, said any development would have to include a walkway along the Hackensack River and a park where the USS Ling submarine is tied up on NJMG property.

Hackensack's Venice

A Walmart Super Center was rumored for the 19.7 acres a couple of years ago, and then gazillionaire Fred Daibes of Edgewater proposed a mixed-use residential and retail development, but that fell through.

Apartments wouldn't seem suitable for what former employees recall as a property prone to frequent flooding that claimed the cars of more than one staffer.

I can recall one storm that surrounded the 150 River St. building with so much water the managers pressed into service newspaper delivery trucks to pick up employees from higher ground a block away.

See a previous post:

Borgs prepare to screw Hackensack again

CIA torture

It's hard to tell who is more upset by the CIA's "brutal interrogation program" after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on America (A-1).

Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called the harsh interrogation techniques a "stain on the nation's history."

But the media are playing up incidents that occurred more than a decade ago before reforms instituted by President Obama.

Could CNN and other media outlets really be upset they've been denied sensational YouTube videos of CIA operatives decapitating suspected terrorists?