Editors don't apologize for swallowing blizzard forecast

The driver of a Ford Mustang turning wide at the snow-covered corner of Euclid and Prospect avenues in Hackensack on Tuesday afternoon. The snowfall was far less than predicted. Drivers of Hackensack's plows don't clear corners.

Who is supposed to clear the sidewalk and curb for pedestrians? Is it the city or the property owner?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Page 1 of The Record today, just about everyone apologizes for wrongly predicting a blizzard with 2 feet of snow or more -- except the media.

The Woodland Park daily jumped on the weather doomsday bandwagon and rode it all the way, but apologized to subscribers for not delivering Tuesday's print edition.

That paper was delivered a day late with today's edition, but one look at Tuesday's front page shows just how stale print journalism can be these days. 

New Jersey highways and Hudson River crossings reopened, and mass transit resumed operation in time for Tuesday's rush hour.

Profit over safety

The big weather photo on Page 1 today is more bad publicity for the cheap lightweight wood construction methods used in the 240-unit Avalon at Edgewater apartment building that burned down a week ago (A-1).

How long will the Virginia-based real estate investment trust allow the burned out skeleton of the Russell building to stand and announce to anyone looking for an apartment, You don't want to live here?

In a letter to the editor, Joyce Huber of Ridgefield said of the cheap wood construction and rapid spread of fire:

"We've become a Third World country if we allow profit to come before safety" (A-12).

That's naive. 

U.S. companies have always prized profit over safety, as all of the defective cars and other products show. They have killed thousands of consumers and made product liability lawyers rich.

First lawsuit

Meanwhile, Robert Loposky and Richard Kemp, two tenants of the so-called luxury apartment building, filed a lawsuit, alleging building owners were "negligent in the construction, maintenance and operation" of the complex, where the fire was started by an Avalon employee using a blowtorch to fix a pipe (L-1).

The first paragraph and sub-headline incorrectly call the suit "a class-action lawsuit" on behalf of the more than 500 displaced tenants who suffered economic loss, because only a judge can certify the suit as a class action.

The first paragraph also refers incorrectly to tenants as "residents."  

Cold cash

Also in Local, a story on L-2 reports wealthy Saddle River residents are allowing their children to attend a school where a malfunctioning heating system forces them to keep their coats on.

I guess that means residents prize clear roads more than they do the health and well-being of children, judging from this Anonymous comment I received from a resident in reaction to Tuesday's post:

"My town, Saddle River, is excellent at plowing and clearing snow and slush. Streets, even those hilly ones, are cleared quite quickly and efficiently. We expect -- and get -- nothing less." 

Of course, this proud Saddle River millionaire and residents of other wealthy Bergen County suburbs are more interested in maintaining "neighborhood schools" with no minority children than they are in working heating systems, even in winter.