Despite controversies, editors stop covering Hackensack

On Tuesday morning, the crosswalk and curb at Main and Berry streets in Hackensack were clear, but the NJ Transit bus stop was buried under a snowbank, testament to a sloppy job by snowplows throughout the 4.4-square-mile city. One resident complained snow was cleared with "no regard for pedestrians."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

No reporter from The Record covered Tuesday night's City Council meeting, where Hackensack residents again complained about haphazard snow clearing that endangered drivers and pedestrians.

Staff Writer Todd South, who had been assigned to Hackensack and Maywood, has been promoted, and no reporter has taken his place to cover the most populous town in Bergen County.

Only Hackensack police news has appeared in the Woodland Park daily for several weeks. 

South's last Hackensack byline was on Dec. 12, when he wrote about a dispute over a marriage license involving Richard Salkin, the Board of Education attorney.

The Record seems to have stopped covering Hackensack, where the Borg publishing family prospered for more than 110 years before abandoning the city in 2009 for Woodland Park.

Hospital, downtown

Yet, the county seat is embroiled in a controversy with the tax-exempt Hackensack University Medical Center, and residents have questioned concessions to developers during the biggest downtown rehabilitation in North Jersey, if not the entire state.

The Record also hasn't reported who stands to profit most from redevelopment.

On Tuesday night, four residents appeared before council officials, meeting as a Committee of the Whole, to complain about snow clearing after the blizzard of 2016, and to urge officials to draw up a plan for future storms.

Irrelevant columns

Instead of municipal news, Editors Martin Gottlieb, Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza continue to choke readers with hundreds of inches of type from Columnists Charles Stile and John Cichowski (A-1 and L-1) -- the editorial equivalent of fiddling while North Jersey burns.

Stile and another reporter filed 50 inches to 60 inches of type on A-1 and A-10 analyzing Governor Christie's response to criticism that he left New Jersey too soon after the snowstorm to return to his doomed New Hampshire campaign:

"I don't know what you want me to do , you want me to go down there with a mop?"

Meanwhile, Cichowski continues to distance himself from the pathetically inadequate advice he gave car owners on how to cope with the blizzard.

Sadly, a 23-year-old woman and her 1-year-old son died on Saturday from carbon-monoxide poisoning in an idling car with a snow-blocked exhaust, a hazard that Cichowski didn't mention (L-1).

Abe Vigoda

Staff Writer Bill Ervolino's obituary for actor Abe Vigoda demonstrates once again why The Record's columnists -- including Stile, Cichowski and Mike Kelly -- fail readers day after day (BL-1).

I can't make any sense of the so-called humor columnist's first paragraph that "if you don't have an uncle who looked a whole lot like Abe Vigoda, then you probably aren't Italian," followed by news that Vigoda was a first-generation Russian Jew.

Readers would do better with a sidebar from local obituary writer Jay Levin, who interviewed Vigoda's daughter after the 94-year-old died in his sleep on Tuesday in her Woodland Park park home (BL-3).

The best lines: 

"This is a man who was never sick a day in his life," Carol Vigoda Fuchs told Levin. "He could've waited for his birthday" (Feb. 24).

'Superfoods'

It isn't enough for Staff Writer Sophia F. Gottfried to quote dietitians on hidden sugar, sodium and fat in foods and products many people consider healthy (BL-1).

Her article doesn't name alternatives, making the advice useless, unless readers embark on their own investigations.

And if they are going to do that, what's the point of her article?

More clueless reporting on latest toll hike, elderly drivers

The New Jersey entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, where tolls went up today for the fifth year in a row, as they did at all of the crossings operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in what The Record suggests was a plot between Governors Christie and Cuomo.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Once again, The Record is portraying New Jersey's bridge and tunnel crowd as powerless to do anything beyond bitching and moaning about the latest toll increase at the GWB and other crossings.

Today's story on the Local front ignores off-peak toll discounts available to drivers of hybrid and other green cars, as well as the biggest break of all, available 24/7 to any motorist -- the Carpool Plan.

Starting today, the peak E-ZPass toll went to $12.50 from $11.75, and the off-peak E-ZPass rate also is up 75 cents, to $9.75 (L-1).

Go green, save green

But owners of more than 40 hybrid, plug-in and all-electric models with a "Green E-ZPass" pay only $7 off-peak, and any driver with an E-ZPass and a total of three people in the car pays only $6.50 at all times.

The Green Pass and Carpool Plans require pre-registration. The Green Pass discount has been available since 2004.

Major error

Staff Writer Marina Villeneuve also includes a major factual error that was overlooked by all of the editors who read her story before publication.

"Starting today," the reporter says, "auto motorists using cash will have to pay $15 to cross, a trip that until recently cost half that" (L-1).

Putting the awkward phrase "auto motorists" aside, the cash toll was never "half" of $15.

It was $8, but that was four years ago, in 2011, not "recently."

And that was when Governors Christie and Cuomo perpetrated the great, annual toll-hike scam to finance construction of a new World Trade Center and other projects.

Elderly drivers

Road Warrior John Cichowski is another reporter who ignores the facts, as readers can see in today's attempt to drum up business for "a low-cost, volunteer ride service ... for the elderly and visually impaired" (L-1).

ITN's North Jersey affiliate in Wyckoff hasn't be able to find enough volunteers so the improvement in "public safety" -- by removing seniors who are visually impaired from behind the wheel -- has been limited.

Cichowski knows from all of the seniors who mistake the gas pedal for the brake pedal that retraining would cut the number of accidents and deaths far more dramatically than a ride service for the elderly.

But in more than a dozen years of writing his column, Cichowski has been too lazy to contact AARP  and similar groups to find out if retraining is available to his peers.

Today's front page

I've rarely seen a Sunday edition with a front page so devoid of useful news for readers in North Jersey.

On the Opinion front, Columnist Mike Kelly doesn't seem willing to denounce lawmakers for taking contributions from the National Rifle Association to block a bill that would stop "terrorists" from buying a gun (O-1 and O-4).

Kelly calls an average of three dozen people killed by guns on any given day "embarrassing." 

And "heartbreaking" is how he describes the lack of "any concrete political action to stop this blood-soaked trend."

I won't bore you with the rest of his column.

Uber screws drivers

The Record's Business section has been anti-worker for decades.

Today's long story on the impact of Uber on the traditional yellow-cab industry continues the trend (B-1).

Staff Writer Richard Newman's focus are the potential losses faced by banks that have issued hundreds of millions of dollars in loans backed by "New York City taxi medallions, which have declined in value from ... $1.3 million two years ago to about $80o,000 today."

Newman doesn't discuss the impact on cabbies nor report on the exploitation of Uber drivers, who supply their own cars and pay for gas, insurance and repairs.

Sinatra overload

I'd much rather hear Frank Sinatra sing and watch him act than plow through three major pieces on him in today's paper (A-1 and BL-1).

Two of them are by Staff Writer Bill Ervolino, whose regular humor column bombs every Sunday.

The only saving grace is that Better Living editors couldn't find room for The Corner Table column from food critic Elisa Ung, who usually promotes celebrity chefs and wealthy restaurant owners or makes excuses for why they don't serve naturally raised food.
   

President Obama affirms we are a nation of immigrants

A noisy propeller-driven airplane, above, and a business jet, below, passing low over South Hackensack buildings on Thursday as they headed for Teterboro Airport. The noise and the proximity of the aircraft are enough to send chills down your spine.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

With his sweeping action to protect 5 million people from deportation -- a move that dominates Page 1 of The Record today -- President Obama has reminded us we live in a nation of immigrants.

As for Governor Christie, he refuses to be pinned down to his own reform plan in the unlikely event he gets the Republican presidential nomination (A-1).

Of course, the GOP bully and do-nothing Republicans in Congress likely are racists whose only desire is to close U.S. borders.

If Obama can be faulted, it is in waiting until after the November elections to take action, fearing it would hurt Democrats' chances.

If the candidates could be faulted, it was in distancing themselves from Obama and the Affordable Care Act.

Nothing could have saved those candidates from voter apathy and Republican attack ads, and The Record and other media didn't bother to expose the lies in those ads.

Better timing

Also on Page 1 today, Staff Writer Bill Ervolino shows unusual restraint in writing the obituary of the incredibly talented Mike Nichols, and doesn't mention himself until deep into the continuation page (A-1 and A-4).

I'm waiting for the day when newspaper editors like the great Martin Gottlieb ask one of their medical writers to do a sidebar on the cause of death -- cardiac arrest in Nichols' case.

Local crime news

There are at least 10 crime stories and accident photos in today's Local news section (L-1, L-2 and L-3). 

Two other stories are about the police.

What would head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, run if they couldn't use the police blotter as their crutch?

Our misfortune

Staff Writer Elisa Ung admits Imperial Dynasty in Mahwah serves "generally average versions of Chinese-American dishes" (BL-18).

So why does she bother wasting our time with this lukewarm, 2-star review of a restaurant in far-off Mahwah?

Fat-mouth Christie keeps us guessing on immigration

Closing one lane on River Street in Hackensack, even at 1:45 in the afternoon, causes a backup that might make you think you live in a far bigger city -- such as the traffic nightmare across the Hudson River. Time for some relaxing classical music.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Governor Christie has never hesitated to speak his mind, such as telling the media someone should "take a bat" to Sen. Loretta Weinberg, the elderly Democrat from Teaneck.

But surrounded by reporters outside a Mexico City taqueria, the GOP bully with the big, fat mouth won't say a word about his position on immigration -- even though New Jersey is known for its diversity.

Gee. Do the media really have to play cat and mouse with this conservative Republican who wanted to be president before the George Washington Bridge lane closures blew up in his face (A-1)?

We know he'd just as soon as send the New Jersey National Guard to the border then actually show concern for the many Mexicans and Central Americans who have relatives in the Garden State.

Christie is supposed to visit Puebla on this so-called trade mission to Mexico, but he's never actually visited the thousands of the Poblanos who live in the city of Passaic.

Mi casa, por favor

A related story on the Local front today notes Christie met with Mexican-American business leaders from Passaic, but they had to travel to the governor's mansion in Princeton (L-1).

When Lilia Rios, an importer of Mexican pottery, told Christie one of the biggest obstacles faced by illegal immigrants is their inability to obtain a New Jersey driver's license, he basically told her to take a hike.

"He didn't respond," she recalled.

Hot-button issue

Actually, if Christie wanted to reduce illegal immigration, he'd urge reform of the legal immigration system.

That system is so expensive, slow and arbitrary many immigrants would rather enter the United States illegally, risking death and deportation.

But The Record and other media have ignored the dysfunctional legal immigration system for decades, preferring the hot-button issue of illegals they know will inflame the racists in their audience.

Sloppy editing

Today and  Thursday, Staff Writer Melissa Hayes' front-page stories on Christie in Mexico seem hastily written and poorly edited.

On Thursday, a dozen words placed awkwardly at the end of the first paragraph should have introduced the sentence.

Today, on A-3, Hayes' story seems to jump from immigration to trade to an exchange program and back again, and she never explains why he isn't shown eating a taco.

Page 1 stories

A day after The Record called a double slaying and suicide in Hasbrouck Heights "inexplicable," the editors now refer to the three deaths as "domestic violence" (A-1).

After Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall died, Columnist Bill Ervolino couldn't wait to dust off the ancient interviews he did with them, and present them to readers on the front page.

Today, with his tribute to Joan Rivers (A-1), Ervolino shows restraint, and if readers get to the continuation page, they'll find one quote that Rivers "told me" (A-10). 

Baseball or food?

A story on the first Business page notes Newark's minor league baseball team "didn't have a lot of community support" (L-7 and L-8).

That may be because residents of the Brick City put a higher priority on getting enough to eat and trying to survive drive-by shootings and other violence.

Cafe Panache

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung today raves about the three-decade-old Cafe Panache in Ramsey, where the fare "keeps the elegant BYO packed" (BL-16).

At dinner, she should have added.

When I met a friend there for lunch in August, the dining room was otherwise empty, and even though my soft-shell crab entree was good, I've had better at Seafood Gourmet in Maywood for much less money.

Ung's data box continues to state the obvious.

Right after she notes entrees are priced from $28 to $39, she tells readers the restaurant would be "less appropriate for those looking for bargain fare."

Instead of treating us like dolts, she could use the data box to tell readers whether the meat and poultry served there is organic or naturally raised.

Today and every day, editors play elaborate catch-up game

Maywood Avenue at Passaic Street, above, and State Street near Hackensack City Hall, below, were closed this week, making local driving even more difficult than normal. In Maywood and Hackensack, officers sat in air-conditioned cruisers during the work. Is that the best use of our property tax dollars?

A long trench was cut into the State Street pavement at Central Avenue.

State Street traffic backed up for more than a block as two lanes of drivers had to turn right onto a narrow, two-way street.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Three days after an apparently disturbed man in a speeding pickup truck killed a woman at a farmers' market, readers of The Record find out he has a terrible driving history (A-1 and L-1).

Two days after Robin Williams' suicide, the paper's editorial director writes movingly about his father's struggle with depression and mental illness, but the column is buried in favor of a feel-good story about the comedian "rallying the troops" (A-1).

Courts rely on retirees

This bold Page 1 headline today sounds like news concerning a shortage of judges in Bergen County.

But the reporter comes clean in the second paragraph, noting the courts have used retired judges for 40 years (A-1).

Revel's luck runs out

The $2.4 billion Revel casino hotel was doomed to fail when it opened in April 2012 backed by Governor Christie's $200 million state tax-break package (A-1).

Contrary to today's Page 1 headline, Revel never was lucky, especially in view of $400-a-night rooms and the smallest casino in Atlantic City -- two features that turned off vacationers.

Yet, The Record's John Brennan has ignored them in story after story about its failed history.

More screw-ups

And a moronic news or copy editor actually wrote an awkwardly worded photo caption saying "Revel employees won't be celebrating" when the casino closes and they lose their jobs (A-8).

Who would "celebrate" losing their jobs in New Jersey or anywhere else? What insensitive idiocy.

Production Editor Liz Houlton gets paid six figures to catch such embarrassing work, and to limit embarrassing corrections, such as the one on A-2 today.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg might as well throw the money out of the window.

Razor burn

The lead anecdote in last Sunday's Page 1 takeout on Richard Nixon's life in Bergen County after he resigned the presidency is about a barber who cut his hair every two weeks, Domenic Parisi.

But Staff Writer Christopher Maag wrote in his first paragraph the shop was on "Maple Avenue in Park Ridge."

Below that, a small A-1 photo of the barber and a quote also identified Parisi as "Nixon's former Park Ridge barber."

Today's correction notes the A-1 article "misidentified the town" of the barbershop, but the street also was wrong.

Parisi's shop is on "North Maple Avenue in Ho-H0-Kus," the correction states, not Maple Avenue in Park Ridge (A-2).

Playing catch-up

I'm not sure what is going on at the morning and afternoon news meetings in the Woodland Park newsroom -- led by the august Martin Gottlieb, a big-time former editor at The New York Times.

But day after day, the print edition plays catch-up on so many stories that are full of unanswered questions thanks to the laziness or incompetence of local Assignment Editors Deirde Sykes and Dan Sforza.

The first question reporters should have asked about James T. Woetzel, 48, the man who killed Donna Marie Wine at the Hawthorne farmers' market on Sunday, is does he have a good driving record.

But the initial report on Monday didn't even identify the driver or the dead woman. (!!!!) 

Today's L-1 story says Woetzel "has a long record" of violations, including DWI, speeding and careless driving.

Come to think of it, the single story about the death of pedestrian Leyla Kan, 60, last Thursday in Leona didn't say anything about the driving history of Esperanza Jaramillo, 54, the school-bus driver, nor did reporters seek comment from her employer, Rainbow Transportation of Bergenfield.

Promoting Ervolino

The editors of Tuesday's Better Living cover couldn't wait to exploit the death of comic Robin Williams by promoting Staff Writer Bill Ervolino's 1989 interview with the comic genius.

But today, concern about mental illness and the depression that drove Williams to suicide is all over the paper -- in a letter to the editor, in a column by Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin and in a story on the same Better Living front (BL-1).

A letter on A-10 today from Robert L. Parker, chief executive officer of NewBridge Services Inc., seemed to speak for many of Williams' most ardent fans:

"We mourn the loss of such a brilliant performer and scratch our heads at how someone who seemed to have it all would end his life.

"Let's try to make something good come of Williams' death. Let's make it a rallying point to value mental health care at the same level of importance as physical health care."

The Record could help by writing about community organizations like NewBridge, instead of seizing every chance it get to promote itself and its staff.

Eye on The Record 

will return next week

Editors panic over 'exploding' trains in North Jersey

Amid a lavish display of flowers, photos of a beaming Leyla Kan, 60, the woman killed by a school bus in Leonia last week, appeared in the window of her pizza-and-pita restaurant in Palisades Park on Monday, above and below. Picnic Cafe, which was closed on Monday, is one of the few non-Korean businesses on Broad Avenue.

The bouquets turned the sidewalk fragrant. Some of the Korean-Americans who stopped to look at the memorial didn't know how Kan had died. The Record did one story on the fatal accident, which resulted in traffic summonses being issued to the school-bus driver, but no follow-ups to resolve unanswered questions.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Should I worry or is today's Page 1 account of exploding oil trains passing through neighboring Teaneck just a sensational attempt to sell The Record during a sleepy August?

As a resident of Hackensack, I'm trying to figure out whether I'm far enough away to be safe after derailment of  "aging" rail tanker cars that carry "millions" of gallons of "highly explosive crude oil" through North Jersey (A-1).

This appears to be a major piece of investigative journalism guided by Editor Martin Gottlieb.

Full story -- finally

The front of Local today fills in many of the details missing in Monday's hastily prepared story about a woman struck and dragged to her death at the Hawthorne farmers' market by a speeding pickup truck (L-1).

The victim, beautician Donna Marie Wine, 58, of Hawthorne lived near the suspect, James T. Woetzel, 48, the driver who was charged with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of an accident on Sunday, but they didn't know each other, The Record says.

"Neither police not the county Prosecutor's Office would reveal details of the horrific incident," forcing Staff Writers Minjae Park, Andrew Wyrich and Jim Norman to wait for the next press release.

However, the reporters are sticking with the victim being dragged four blocks, even though other media accounts put the distance at a half-mile.

Robin Williams

Burned-out columnist Bill Ervolino again uses the death of a prominent entertainer to promote his own sorry ass (BL-1).

Why does this "appreciation" of Williams begin like others he's written, recapping an Ervolino interview from the dark ages, in this case 25 years ago?

You can read thousands of words about the comic genius on Page 1, the Better Living front and BL-2, and still not know how Williams died.

More questions

The cause of death was "suicide due to asphyxia" or suffocation, but does that mean Williams hung himself, put his head into the oven, was trying a weird sexual thing or killed himself in another way?

Unfortunately, you can't count on The Record for the answer, whether a death occurs as near as Leonia and Hawthorne or as far away as northern California.

Leyla Kan

In front of Picnic Cafe in Palisades Park on Monday, a woman recalled her 20-year friendship with the owner, Leyla Kan, who was killed last Thursday morning by a school bus in Leonia. 

Years ago, Kan had been severely injured in an automobile accident, and was so grateful to have survived, the friend said.

Now, the woman said, she can't believe her friend is gone. All she was doing was crossing the street.

More corrections

A correction today notes The Record can't even spell a former freeholder's name properly (A-2).

In his Sunday column, Road Warrior John Cichowski mistakenly said there are only six residential streets with direct access to Route 17 south, even though he reported previously there are seven.

Cichowski's sense of direction also is flawed in that he said a Bergen Avenue house is five blocks south of another resident, when it is, in fact, five blocks north.

Read about other flaws in the column:

Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers

Columnists make fools of themselves on Page 1

Before and after a crew patched potholes at Euclid and Prospect avenues in Hackensack, above and below. The private contractor spent the entire day Monday repairing only two blocks of Prospect between Ross Avenue and Clinton Place.

The severely pockmarked pavement along the blocks of Prospect Avenue lined by high-rises wasn't touched on Monday.

Editor's note: In 2018, four years after this was written, Columnists John Cichowski and Bill Ervolino still are boring readers to tears while so many talented reporters were laid off by the Gannett Co.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I'd be surprised if more than a few dozen commuters from Bergen and Passaic counties drive past the Lincoln Tunnel and use the Holland Tunnel to enter one of the world's most-congested cities.

But here is Staff Writer John Cichowski of The Record, also known as the demented Road Warrior, wasting his and readers' time with a Page 1 column today on the Pulaski Skyway, the elevated roadway that reaches a choke-point at the old, two-lane tube to Manhattan.

The drop headline on A-1 asks if the gasoline tax is the best way to fund future road repairs and mass-transit improvements.

But Cichowski's dementia took hold, and readers who stick with this column to the bitter end on A-6 never find the answer.

Commuters in Bergen and Passaic counties would much rather see more stories and columns on whether any improvements are planned at the congested Port Authority Bus Terminal, where bus riders encounter long lines and the lack of such basic comforts as benches.

Or, whether any widening projects are planned for such antiquated roads as Passaic Street in Rochelle Park, Maywood and Hackensack, a major thoroughfare that is often backed up behind turning vehicles.

Ruining Rooney

The other fool on Page 1 today is Columnist Bill Ervolino, who can't help reminding readers he once interviewed actor Mickey Rooney, 93, who died on Sunday after a show-business career of nearly nine decades (A-1).

Ervolino reaches back 21 years, and makes a "short joke" at Rooney's expense, noting the actor was seated on a couch, but that his "sneakers" only occasionally touched "the ground" (the carpet in the actor's hotel room). 

Who gives a shit that the unfunniest man at The Record once interviewed Rooney?

Meanwhile, does anyone understand the densely written story on Verizon's high-speed internet service or what is at stake for consumers from the first few long paragraphs on the front page today (A-1)?

More accident news

Two traffic accidents, one of them fatal, dominate the front of Local today as Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza seems to be relying more and more on crash coverage to fill out his thin local report (L-1).

The stories don't answer readers' questions on the cause of the accidents, even though the fatal crash occurred more than three days ago.

The reporter who went to the funeral home for the wake of Nick Romano, 17, couldn't reach the Wayne Police Department's Traffic Bureau on Monday (L-1), and the investigating prosecutor apparently wouldn't talk to her.

The second accident involved a tanker truck that flipped on Monday at 3 in the morning on Route 287 near Mahwah, injuring the driver, who wasn't identified (L-1).

The photo caption notes 2,000 gallons of milk spilled from the tanker, but doesn't say whether 12 ounces of coffee would have prevented the accident.

More highway related news appears on L-2, where a photo shows a brush fire on Route 17, near Route 80, in Lodi. Gee whiz.

A story and photo reports Paterson is having financial problems from the extra cost of removing snow and patching potholes, but where is the story about Hackensack and other Bergen communities who are in the same boat (L-3)?

Readers find little under the tree from the newsroom

The elegant bell tower of St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church on Lodi Street in Hackensack, where services are held in English, Italian and Spanish, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The Record's entire front page today looks back, not forward.

The major elements on Page 1 are the editors' way of saying they are far more fascinated with the past than with imagining what our future could be.

Two of the three stories are about NJ Transit and the Port Authority, but there is nothing here for commuters hoping for improvements in mass transit that could help relieve worsening traffic congestion.

This is triumph?

The photo package celebrates "North Jersey's triumphs [and] tributes of 2013."

Is that it? Is that the best North Jersey did?

The big photos show a high school football player, a singer who didn't win "The Voice" and the manager of a Moonachie restaurant that reopened after being destroyed by Superstorm Sandy (A-1).

View from Ridgewood

Don't miss the silly editorial on A-22 or the letter from Bob Hutton, a well-off Ridgewood resident who does a good imitation of being a Tea Party crackpot.

Hutton calls "taxation ... a redistribution of wealth."

Let's see. Property taxes go to pay for schools, police and fire protection; garbage pick-up and, if you live outside Hackensack, street paving.

How is that a redistribution of wealth?

The truth is Governor Christie broke the promise he made during the 2009 campaign to lower local property taxes, and he's made a mess of state finances by, among other things, refusing to tax millionaires.

More on the rich

The Local section today brings us yet another story about the nasty public battle between millionaires over the huge Hudson News inheritance.

Staff Writer Kibret Markos is true to his background as a lawyer, giving readers a tedious legal lesson as part of his overlong story on a trial that started in September, but has roots in an action filed in 2008 (L-1).

Markos and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza have put so much time and effort into covering this case they've ignored a surge in age-discrimination lawsuits and just about everything else going on at the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack.


Dismiss columnists

When is someone going to tell Bill Ervolino that his funny stand-up routine doesn't translate into text, and that readers are sick and tired of endless stories about his parents on Long Island (BL-3)?

Readers would really have something to celebrate, if The Record of Woodland Park dismisses Ervolino and just about every other white male columnist -- Mike Kelly, the error-prone John Cichowski, Charles Stile et al. -- and gave us fresh voices in the new year.

In wealthy Ridgewood, size doesn't matter

Utility poles on or near Prospect and Euclid avenues in Hackensack snapped like matchsticks during Superstorm Sandy last October, above and below, knocking out power for days. We'd love to have the stronger, 65-foot poles Ridgewood residents find so offensive, according to a Page 1 story in The Record today.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

To the disappointment of all Ridgewood women, village officials and some residents have declared size doesn't matter.

The centerpiece on Page 1 of The Record today reports residents and officials have little more to worry about than the aesthetics of their leafy streets.

They've asked PSE&G to stop installing 65-foot utility poles -- about twice the height of a normal pole -- that are "built to withstand powerful storms," the Woodland Park daily reports.

Japan and women

Two other stories today trace the well-known mistreatment of women by the Japanese (A-1 and L-3).

A front-page story reports a lawsuit alleging gender and race bias at Panasonic Corp. of North America in Secaucus filed by three African-American women who are executives at the electronics giant.

In Local, a story and photo show a Bergen County memorial for the so-called comfort women who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II (L-3).

The lead paragraph states that one of the victims, Ok-seon Yi, "placed flowers" at the memorial in Hackensack.

But the caption of the photo says Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan is "showing" the memorial to Yi, when, in fact, Donovan is helping the frail, 86-year-old Korean woman walk up to the plaque with flowers.

That's sloppy, but typical of the paper's clueless copy editors.

Heat-wave coverage

On the front of Local, a landscaper who looks to be in his 60s is shown outside in Tuesday's blistering sun -- without a hat.

The Record continues to ignore people forced to work in un-cooled auto-body shops and restaurant kitchens in favor of morons like landscaper Antonio Cubias, who doesn't have a clue on how to cope with the heat.

Pig in a poke

Staff Writer Bill Ervolino spends  hundreds of words extolling the virtues of Italian meats from Salumeria Biellesse in Hackensack (BL-1).

But he never explains why the coppas, pancettas and the other supposedly artisanal meats can't be made uncured and free of such harmful preservatives as nitrates and nitrites.