Jerseyans need 'conservative change' like hole in head

Property taxes in Tenafly are among the highest in Bergen County. So what's the explanation for why the borough Police Department still uses this outdated Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, above and below?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I'm searching through another upbeat Governor Christie column for something truly ridiculous the GOP bully said during the second presidential debate on Wednesday night.

But Charles Stile, who often sounds more like Christie's spin doctor than a skeptical reporter, cheated readers, only providing part of the quote in his Page 1 column in The Record today:

"I'm a Republican in New Jersey. I wake up every morning as an outsider" (A-8).

Of course, just the opposite is true:

Christie is the ultimate insider who cozy ups to powerful corporations like United Airlines, and installs his cronies at the Port Authority, the huge transportation agency that also serves as the region's patronage mill.

It gets worse

Christie, as reported by WNYC-FM this morning, said he brought "conservative change" to New Jersey, and claimed the state really needed it.

Like a hole in the head.

Well, Christie did cap property taxes, as a conservative would, but they continue to go up and he failed miserably to fulfill a 2009 campaign promise to lower them.

Is the state's sluggish economy the "conservative change" he is talking about or the mess he's made of state pensions, mass transit, the environment and so many other areas?

Other 'news'

The only other "news" on the front page today are two more stories about Rutgers University's football team (A-1).

On the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski doesn't discuss the penalties against the drivers who struck or killed crossing guards and doesn't recommend they be increased as a deterrent (L-1).

He names Pawothil Abraham, 63, of Bergenfield as the driver who knocked down Jo-Ann Hans, 60, on Tuesday morning, and says among the charges against him is "failing to heed a crossing guard."

That's meaningless to readers without information on the penalty, and what happened to other drivers charged with the same traffic offense.

Should knocking down a crossing guard bring a criminal charge and a prison sentence? 

Space filler

Cichowski doesn't venture to say.

Instead, he fills his columns with tons of statistics, and often gets them wrong. 

Cichowski may succeed as a space filler, but he fails miserably as a journalist and an opinion columnist, a flaw he shares with long-winded word pusher Mike Kelly.

The news story that reports Hans' condition has improved doesn't even mention the driver or what police might have to say about why he struck the crossing guard, who was in critical condition (L-1).

When I Googled "Pawothil Abraham," the driver, I got one hit that gave the name as "Abraham Pawothil."