Borgs rely on Christie ally in sale of Rockaway plant

Some visitors to the Bergen County Courthouse on Main Street in Hackensack park at Costco Wholesale, 80 S.River St., to avoid the $5 fee at the temporary lot leased from North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The sale-leaseback deal with a close Borg family friend is the latest chapter in the troubled history of North Jersey Media Group's Rockaway Township printing plant.

On Friday, Stephen A. Borg, publisher of The Record, announced an agreement with a fund sponsored by the Hampshire Cos. of Morristown, but not that family friend Jon F. Hanson is the real estate companies' founder and chairman.

Hanson and Christie

Hanson, 77, a close friend of NJMG Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, also is Governor Christie's adviser on casino and sports development projects.

The real estate developer has received extensive and favorable coverage in the Woodland Park daily, though Staff Writer John Brennan never discloses Hanson's ties to the Borgs.

But in June 2014, The Guardian newspaper reported a joint venture that included Hanson's Hampshire Cos. was awarded a $105 million tax incentive in 2013 by the Christie administration for a hotel and office project in Paterson.

The Guardian said Hanson is one of Christie's chief fundraisers, and both men served as top fundraisers for the presidential campaign of George W. Bush in 2000.

The newspaper said Hanson's ties to Christie also extend to insurance giant Prudential, where the businessman retired from the board of directors in 2011.

Later that year, the company received a $250 million tax incentive from the state Economic Development Authority to move its offices a few blocks.

Hanson and Mac

In 2011, Eye on The Record reported Hanson and Malcolm Borg purchased a private jet from a woman who was later featured in a Business page story in The Record:

"A Web site listing recent sales by Freestream Aircraft Ltd. says a Citation Excel was 'exclusively purchased on behalf of Mr. Malcolm Borg and Mr. John Hanson,' though Hanson's first name is misspelled.

"The price isn't given, but Freestream sells jets that cost $10 million to $50 million.

"Borg discusses the process of buying the plane in this testimonial about Rebecca Posoli-Cilli, president of Freestream's U.S. office in Hackensack:

'Rebecca’s sales team, but especially Rebecca, was the best thing that happened to us when my friend and I decided to sell our 1984 Citation III and upgrade into a late-model Citation Excel. She had the patience of Job in dealing with me, the lead partner, in the acquisition of our Excel. Without her, we would not have made the great choice we did. She found us a plane with 1100 hours that was 95% equipped with everything desired; she took care of all the pre-buy inspections and details; and she negotiated the upgrades to our avionics with Duncan Aviation. 

'Without Rebecca, my friend [Hanson] and his family and my family and I would not be enjoying the wonderful convenience of having our own jet at our disposal. She was simply incredible on all counts, and I recommend her to any potential airplane purchaser without reservation.' 

• Malcolm A. Borg, Managing Partner – Trio Air Holdings, LLC

Rockaway plant

The Rockaway printing plant was built during a recession in the early 1990s as Malcolm Borg sought to extend The Record's reach into Morris County.

But when the elder Borg sought a loan to buy another daily newspaper, banks told him he was overextended.

The plant began printing other newspapers, including USA Today and the Irish Echo, and became a big profit center.

After Stephen Borg took over as publisher of The Record and Herald News in 2006, the four-color presses in Hackensack were worn out, and he moved the printing of those dailies to Rockaway, enabling him to lay off more than 50 pressman.

According to NJMG, the printing plant produces the company's two daily newspapers, more than 40 of its community newspapers and also prints USA Today, Greater Media Newspapers, Gannett Westchester-Rockland Newspapers and the New Jersey Herald.

Decline in quality

The move to Rockaway, a major downsizing of the staff in 2008 and the abandonment of Hackensack in 2009 appear to have contributed to a precipitous decline in the quality and accuracy of local journalism at The Record.

Today, for example, an A-2 correction notes a story on Friday identified Ridgewood Mayor Paul Aronsohn as village manager.

That's a really stupid mistake, but typical of the sloppiness since Liz "Queen of Errors" Houlton was promoted to six-figure production editor. 

The front page often reads like a national paper, thanks to Editor Marty Gottlieb, a former bigwig at The New York Times.

And the Local section reads more and more like a police blotter, as many of the stories in today's edition show, thanks to the laziness and incompetence of Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza (L-1 to L-6).

Today's paper

Typical of media hype and exaggeration is today's Page 1 headline comparing the killings of newspaper editors, police officers and hostages in Paris to the 2011 attack on America:

France 
grapples
with its
own 9/11

In two long front-page stories remembering Brendan Jordan, The Record makes no attempt to find out whether improper maintenance caused the freak collapse of a folding bench that fatally injured the 7-year-old in a New Milford school on Wednesday.