With N.J. going to hell, A-1 pro hockey news is shocking

Today's Hackensack Chronicle reports the Atlantic Street Park is officially open, but on Thursday, workmen were still putting the finishing touches on the space, above and below.

New parking meters on Atlantic Street, right, were covered with plastic bags on Thursday, and an officer in a marked police car ordered me to move after I parked there to take pictures.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

New Jersey continues to struggle under an absentee governor, but Editor Martin Gottlieb couldn't care less.

Page 1 of The Record today is dominated by a silly sports column and the 12-year-old photo of Lou Who?

Gottlieb, who once worked at The New York Times and lives in Manhattan, continues to show contempt for the concerns of the vast majority of New Jersey residents as Governor Christie focuses most of his energies on his failing presidential bid.

Also on A-1

Another Page 1 story today -- on the growing number of female funeral directors -- is puzzling given how obituaries of locally prominent people rarely appear on the front page.

I guess Gottlieb knows how many geezers like himself still read the paper, so he's aimed a third A-1 story on hip and knee replacement surgery squarely at them (A-1).

A story on A-3 says that in early September, all NJ Transit bus service "would be consolidated" on the midtown Manhattan bus terminal's third floor.

Why wasn't that done 10 years ago?

End the column

Readers of the Road Warrior column know Staff Writer John Cichowski is so desperate for material he'll print any and every email from readers, whose exaggerations and inaccuracies rival the columnist's own (L-1).

Today, he quotes Dave Mackay of Ringwood as claiming he was "chased from a cellphone lot" at Newark Liberty International Airport while waiting for his wife's plane to land.

"Non-commercial drivers must pay to use these lots that are intended for people who are picking up arriving passengers, he was told," the columnist claims.

Not sure what the veteran reporter means by "these lots," because there is only one at Newark airport, and it's relatively new.

Another cellphone lot is at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Both lots are free, but the signage at Newark makes that lot much harder to find.

Cichowski's column is filled with so many errors readers don't known what is true and what isn't. 

Ending the column would be absolutely no loss to commuters.