Editors deliver superficial coverage of another big storm

In Hackensack, dog walkers and other pedestrians were stymied today, if they planned to leave their own block. As in years past, city plows and crews don't do corners or crosswalks. Meanwhile, The Record's lazy editors shrugged and went back to sleep rather than cover the blizzard of 2016 in any detail.

Hackensack homeowners who cleared their driveways to the curb or paid someone else to do it found that city plows then threw up an impenetrable blockade -- this only two weeks before several thousand dollars in property taxes are due.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

By noon today, the print edition of The Record still hadn't hit my cleared driveway in Hackensack.

The paper's dysfunctional home delivery unit struggles to deliver a dry paper when it's raining, so I guess I should cut it some slack after more than 2 feet of snow falls.

But that's no excuse for the lazy local Assignment Editors, Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, who once again deliver spotty coverage of winter's first blizzard, judging by the digital edition I am looking at online.

The biggest fear of residents who lived through Irene, Sandy and other big storms was the loss of power, light and heat, but Page 1 and the Local front carry little or nothing about outages.

Town coverage?

On L-1 -- the main responsibility of Sykes and Sforza -- readers are bewildered by a story on how the storm altered plans for Saturday funerals.

What about Jewish families who must bury their dead within 24 hours? The story is silent on that score. 

There are about 90 towns in The Record's circulation area, but the staff appears to have done reporting from only a couple of dozen of them (L-1, L-3 and L-6).

Hackensack?

Staff Writer Kibret Markos, who usually is assigned to the state courthouse in Paterson, reported on Prospect Avenue high-rises in Hackensack, a city that covers an area of nearly 4.4 square miles and is the most populous in Bergen County (L-3).

Markos interviewed two building employees, a resident of the Blair House, and two pedestrians who said they were Russian and shrugged off the "thigh-high" snow.

Here is one of the sentences in his superficial report:

"The neighborhood of high-rises along Propsect Avenue remained mostly barren, with a few cars driving by every few minutes."

Editors swallow official excuses on cops' lack of stun guns

The American Littoral Society, which is dedicated to coastal preservation, held its annual Members Day on Saturday at historic Fort Hancock in the Sandy Hook National Recreation Area.

The society's headquarters is in one of the old officers houses, in Highlands, overlooking Sandy Hook Bay. Members went on nature walks and had a lunch of fresh clams, sandwiches, salads and beer.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record reports New Jersey apparently was the last state to approve Tasers, a non-fatal stun gun introduced 17 years ago as an alternative to the use of deadly force by police.

And that wasn't until 2006.

Yet, the biggest police department in Bergen County, Hackensack, still doesn't have them (A-1 and A-10).

Hackensack officers killed two Hispanic suspects allegedly armed with knives since May 21, and on May 29, Lyndhurst cops killed a black man after he "assaulted officers with a knife." (A-10).

Municipal police in Bergen County also killed two other suspects, both black, armed with knives or "tools" in 2011 and 2012.

Official excuses?

Today's Page 1 story by Staff Writer Kibret Markos contains extensive quotes from Prosecutor John L. Molinelli on the slow roll-out of stun guns in Bergen County that critics might see as excuses.

But Markos doesn't bother interviewing any critics, and that may be because the reporter was assigned to cover Molinelli's office for years as part of his Bergen County Courthouse beat.

Even an editorial on cops killing three suspects in three weeks doesn't question why only 23 out of 70 local police departments in Bergen County have Tasers (O-3).

Clearly, the lives of minority men don't mean much to the white editors of the Woodland Park daily.

Hispanic names

Hispanics have lived in Bergen County for many decades, but that doesn't mean such six-figure editors as Deirdre Sykes, head of the local assignment desk, and Liz Houlton, the so-called production supervisor, have learned anything about Latino names.

On Friday, in the front-page coverage of Hackensack police shooting and killing Raymond Peralta Lantigua, 22, his sister is identified as Michelle Peralta and mother as Rosabla Peralta.

On Saturday, follow-up stories -- on the family, the police account of the shooting and how police are trained in the use of deadly force -- contain a different name for the mother, without acknowledging an error was made.

Correction

On Saturday, the mother was identified as Rosalva, not Rosabla, and her last name was given as Lantigua, not Peralta.

The man's father was identified in a Saturday A-1 photo caption as Ramon Peralta.

Traditionally, the man's mother would be named Rosalva Peralta Lantigua, Peralta being her husband's name and Lantigua her maiden name.

There also hasn't been any explanation of why the man who was killed used a hyphen between his father's and mother's names.

If you think that's insignificant and not worthy of comment, you aren't familiar with what copy editors and their supervisors are supposed to do to ensure accuracy.

Or, you've become accustomed to The Record's slipshod editing and proof-reading.

Hillary Clinton

The Record is so addicted to the conflict between the Republicans and Democrats, political Columnist Charles Stile was assigned to cover the kick-off of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign (A-1).

Of course, what Stile doesn't say is that Clinton's focus on women, minorities and the middle class in a war-weary nation virtually assures her election over Republican saber rattlers like Governor Christie. 

Maybe, Editor Martin Gottlieb believes he can sell more papers by focusing on endless political controversies rather than on reporting what's good for the country.

When will Gottlieb and other editors realize readers are bored with politics? All the evidence they need is how few people actually vote anymore.

More on Christie

Check out another in a series of critical Christie cartoons from Margulies on O-2 today.

But can readers take Columnist Mike Kelly at his word that he's just discovering the GOP bully has left "immense unfinished business" (O-1)?

Local news?

Don't look for much municipal news in Local today, especially on L-2, where you'll find two forms of filler: 

The Dean's List, and two too many photos of a tree that fell on a house in Woodcliff Lake.

Am I the only reader wondering if that grossly overweight man shown in a photo on L-3 is an active firefighter in Palisades Park?

My reservations

Chief restaurant critic Elisa Ung's Sunday column administers another tongue lashing to customers.

The Corner Table scolds people to who make reservations without "scanning the menu" and listing food allergies or "quirky eating inclinations" (BL-1).

But, really, is there any excuse for Chef Kevin Kohler of Cafe Panache, one of the best and most expensive restaurants in Bergen County, not always having live lobsters on hand for seafood lovers?

It's time for Ung to stop making excuses for restaurants, especially those enormously expensive steakhouses she loves that put profit over the health and welfare of customers by serving mystery meat and poultry.

Christie's indecision, waffling shouldn't be front-page news

Hackensack's open-air venue, which also has been called a downtown park, is taking shape along Atlantic Street, near Main Street.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Editor Martin Gottlieb of The Record continues to ignore the close relationship of real estate mogul Jon F. Hanson to both Governor Christie and the Borg family, publisher of the Woodland Park daily.

Today, as on too many days in the past, a Page 1 news story by Melissa Hayes and a Charles Stile column on Christie's on-again, off-again presidential aspirations opens the editor to charges that the fix is in (A-1).

Hanson, founder and chairman of the Morristown-based Hampshire Real Estate Cos., is a top Christie fundraiser as well as his adviser on state gambling and entertainment policy.

He also co-owns a business jet with Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, chairman of North Jersey Media Group.

Local news?

In Local today, the sixth-grader who won the 78th annual North Jersey Spelling Bee gets far more space than Lesley Renee Adams, the first black woman to serve as a municipal judge in Bergen County (L-1 and L-2).

What is the lead local-news story today?

A dispute between Korean restaurant owners in Palisades Park who have liquor licenses and those who allow patrons to bring their own beer and soju (L-1).

A better place for that story would be the thin Better Living section, where the editors pretend to cover the North Jersey food scene.

Editing lapses 

Staff Writer Kibret Markos is filling in on his old beat, the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, while Peter Sampson covers the Joseph Ferriero trial in Newark federal court.

Today, the headline and Markos' first paragraph both report two men were indicted on vehicular homicide charges in separate crashes (L-1).

But the second case isn't discussed until the continuation page (L-2). 

Another editing lapse is saying the men "face trials," far from a certainty. They could take a plea deal.

Decades of no change in racism, corruption, judiciary

Let's hope warmer temperatures melt the ice and snow covering the sidewalk on this corner near Target in Hackensack before a pedestrian breaks his neck.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's front page today carries three stories that suggest little has changed in decades when it comes to racism, official corruption and high legal fees that deny access to the courts.

Recent attacks on President Obama by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and other Republicans show racism is alive and well 50 years after "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Ala. (A-1).

An indictment naming U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., will expose the corrupt system of campaign financing, but probably not change the way The Record and other media ignore the need for reforms (A-1).

The Page 1 story on the retirement of Bergen County Assignment Judge Peter E. Doyne was written for other judges and lawyers, not for the public, including people who can't afford high legal fees (A-1).

In fact, Doyne is returning to the private practice of law for the "money" -- legal fees of hundreds of dollars an hour that appear to be completely unregulated by the judiciary.

Staff Writer Kibret Markos, who once covered the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, is himself a lawyer, but you won't find any details his Doyne story -- certainly not his salary as an assignment judge or the hourly fee he is expected to command when he joins a Hackensack law firm.

In fact, in all the years Markos has reported on multi-million dollar legal settlements and jury awards, he never told readers about the substantial amount lawyers always raked off the top. 

Herb Jackson

Another Record reporter is in the news today, Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson, who is described on A-3 today as "a face that has for years struck fear into the hearts of North Jersey politicians."

What a joke. What can you expect? That lead paragraph was written by a Record reporter in Woodland Park, Stephanie Akin.

Jackson's selective memory doesn't strike fear in politicians' hearts; it gladdens them.

That certainly was the case before the November election when Hackensack lawyer Roy Cho campaigned against Rep. Scott Garrett, the crackpot conservative from the 5th District.

In a major front-page story, Jackson somehow forgot to mention that Garrett initially opposed billions in federal aid for victims of Superstorm Sandy.

To impress Jackson, all you have to do is raise a ton of special interest money to crush your opponents.

In fact, his coverage of an incumbent and challenger is directly in proportion to how much money they raise -- the incumbent usually gets the lion's share of his attention, because the reporter isn't interested in issues-oriented stories.

How else to explain that the first thing Jackson tells you about Menendez today is that the Cuban-American senator is "a prolific campaign fundraiser" (A-1).

Local schools

Readers might be questioning the poor job some school officials do to safeguard students after reading today's Page 1 story on a fifth-grader who jumped to his death (A-1).

The death of a 10-year-old from Dumont follows that of a 7-year-old killed by a falling table in January at a school in New Milford.

Local news

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, continue to struggle to fill their thin section with legitimate news (L-1 to L-6).

Today, they needed two filler photos of minor accidents (L-2 and L-3), and a long wire service obituary for an obscure documentary film maker (L-6).

On the Local front, Staff Writer Melissa Hayes reports on Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg of Teaneck attending "a summit" to develop "policies to bolster the middle class."

That's in stark contrast to Hayes' full-time job of covering Governor Christie, who is famous for policies that are destroying the middle class in New Jersey, though you certainly don't know it from any of her stories.

Killings of police are rare compared to minority deaths

Traffic is funneled into one lane in each direction during reconstruction of the Route 46 bridge over the Hackensack River, above. Last week, President Obama said as many as 1 million jobs would be created, if Congress authorized the rebuilding of the nation's roads and bridges, compared to a fraction of that number for completion of the Keystone Pipeline.

I was 11th on the line of commuters waiting for NJ Transit's 165 Turnpike Express to Hackensack and Westwood, scheduled to leave the bus terminal in Manhattan at 3:05 last Tuesday afternoon. By the time the bus came, the line doubled back on itself and grew to more than 40. Commuters are sitting on the floor, left, because the Port Authority provides few seats or other creature comforts for them.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

At the end of the long story leading Page 1 of The Record today, wire service reporters note "the last shooting death of an NYPD officer came in December 2011" (A-12).

The hard-luck editors who got stuck working on Saturday just slapped The Associated Press story into the paper.

They forgot to localize the deaths of two NYPD cops at the hands of a black gunman by bringing up Jersey City Police Officer Melvin Santiago, who was shot and killed by a black robbery suspect.

Santiago was killed last July 13, as Staff Writer Mike Kelly reported six days ago in an Opinion page column that drew praise from readers in two letters to the editor on Saturday's A-15.


Kelly's resume

Kelly's column was too long, especially because the reporter reminded readers what a great journalist he is -- the book he wrote on the fatal police shooting of a black Teaneck teen, the Ku Klux Klan resurgence he covered.

He said the killing of Santiago and other police officers by black gunmen should be made part of "America's racial conversation."

Of course, what Kelly didn't say is that the deaths of Santiago and the two NYPD cops on Saturday are relatively rare.

Far more numerous are the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and all of the other minorities at the hands of white police officers who are guilty of racial profiling and abusing their authority.   

Elderly coverage

The Record's editors ignore Alzheimer's disease and the challenges facing older drivers, but assign Jay Levin to cover the elderly in his local obituaries and, as he does today, in his occasional story on a 90- or 100-year-old who still is alive and kicking (A-1).

What a terrific photo Herman Schnipper of Hackensack took of sailors at attention in 1945 on the deck of the USS Astoria (A-1). Too bad it is so small.

The much larger photo on A-1 today is one of shoppers at Westfield Garden State Plaza -- yet another example of how the editors prostrate themselves in front of big advertisers to the detriment of readers (Local front).

Food promotions

See the Better Living section today for heavy promotion of restaurants, cookbooks and small kitchen appliances (BL-2).

Hungry? Why not try Millie's "famous Pot-of-Balls"? LOL.

Saturday's paper

The "non-profit" Hackensack University Medical Center has obliterated the residential appeal of its Hackensack neighborhood and uses a lot of city services, yet pays no taxes on more than $180 million in property.

Now, Medicare is fining HUMC for not keeping elderly patients safe, according to a Page 1 story on Saturday.

Only Bergen Regional Medical Center in Paramus -- the former Bergen Pines -- did worse.

Well, at least Englewood Hospital and Medical Center is only about 7 miles away.

Putz Prize

In a letter to the editor on Saturday's A-15, Dave Tomney of Maywood commented on Kelly's Dec. 14 column on the slain Jersey City police officer, declaring the reporter will win the Pulitzer Prize.

Or, as former Breaking News Editor Jerry DeMarco would say, "Pull It, Sir" Prize.

No jail for bus driver

The crying need to jail drivers who kill pedestrians is apparent in a Local front story on Saturday.

A judge sentenced former NJ Transit driver Catherine Collier to probation after she was charged with vehicular homicide in the Sept. 27, 2012, death of Joseph Currier, 49, a Passaic man who was struck by her bus in a crosswalk.

Collier accelerated "and ended up running a red light before hitting Currier," according to prosecutors, but the former bus driver claimed at sentencing it was not her "intention for this to happen."

This story by Staff Writer Kibret Markos is filled with unanswered questions:

Why was Collier, 67, who was charged with vehicular homicide, allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge?

Judge Adam Jacobs sentenced her to a one-year suspended jail term, apparently for assault by auto.

The judge ignored the victim's mother, who said at sentencing, "I['d] like to see justice done for my son."

See this Facebook page for another instance where an NJ Transit bus driver killed a pedestrian:

Innocent People Who Lost Their Lives ...

Was Tony Soprano elected governor of New Jersey?

Welcome to New Jersey: With the Bayonne Bridge closed, people disembarking from a cruise ship at Port Jersey in Bayonne on Saturday faced a 30-minute delay in reaching the New Jersey Turnpike.

After the tollbooths, drivers passed an oasis of beauty next to the turnpike.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers with solar panels on their homes searched today's front page in vain for a clue to whether The Record's lead story on the state Clean Energy Program had anything to do with them (A-1).

If they managed to plow through all of the long, densely written paragraphs on A-1 without losing interest -- and that's doubtful -- they turned to the continuation page and saw a big photo of solar panels on a county building (A-6).

But why did Editor Marty Gottlieb think this is the first thing readers wanted to see today?

Staff Writer Jean Rimbach, the least productive reporter in the Woodland Park newsroom, worked on this expose a long time, but it is no easier to get into or understand, and whatever editing it might have received is invisible.

What it means

Has Rimbach's investigation uncovered another one of Governor Christie's failed promises or the well-known revolving door between government and industry?

And I can't see how any of this affects me as a homeowner who has solar panels on his roof or anyone else who took part in the Clean Energy Program.

I'm still getting free electricity more than six months out of the year, and I'm still earning monthly solar credits I can sell to Public Service Electric & Gas for cash.

Despite all of the talent Gottlieb has on his local photo staff, the former New York Times veteran keeps on running wire-service photos on Page 1, such as the silly one today of "pro-Russia protesters."

On A-2, the SHOT OF THE DAY is from Gaza City. Maybe, the real shot of the day is the majestic eagle on the Local front today.

Tony Soprano

A second piece on Page 1 today is clearly about another of the GOP bully's failed promises -- the incredible mismanagement of Superstorm Sandy aid (A-1 and A-7).

On Friday night, HBO satirist Bill Maher suggested Tony Soprano wasn't whacked in the final episode of "The Sopranos" in June 2007, he was elected governor of New Jersey.

After the belly laughs died down, that didn't seem so far-fetched, given how Christie has treated Sandy victims, bridge-and-tunnel Democrats in Fort Lee and other cities, commuters and the middle and working classes on whose backs he is about to balance another state budget.

White and black

Why did the local editors put David Peluso, a heroin addict from Mahwah, on the Local front, and bury a story about Kirk-Andeno Lawrence, 21, a promising college student who worked with an EMT unit?

Lawrence, of Paterson, committed suicide. He was black, as was the reporter who wrote the story, and the heroin addict is white. 

Did that have anything to do with placement of the respective stories?

Inflated salaries

Also on the Local front today is a piece by Staff Writer Hannan Adely on public relations consultants hired by a small number of towns, including Hackensack.

The city, which can't afford to repair potholes, is paying Thom Ammirato $78,000 a year -- a reward for his work as campaign manager to the Citizens for Change slate that swept last May's City Council election.

But Mayor John Labrosse, the top vote-getter, claims he didn't know Ammirato, the city's chief spokesman, already had a full-time public relations job with Bergen County's Republican administrator, plus a few other side jobs.

Ammirato's one-year contract with Hackensack expires in mid-July.

Newsroom changes

Meanwhile, Adely has been pulled off her Hackensack beat, and Kibret Markos has been assigned to the Passaic County Courthouse in Paterson after years of covering state Superior Court in Hackensack.

Staff Writer Peter J. Sampson replaced Markos at the Bergen County Courthouse, where there will a lot less second-hand smoke outside the main entrance the latter favored for his frequent smoking breaks.

Bridgegate probe targets only delay the inevitable

If you live in Hackensack, your property taxes don't pay for buses to take your children to school, unless they are handicapped. On Wednesday, this bus dropped off disabled children at the four-story high school, where the elevator used by the handicapped has been broken for about two months.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

First, they lawyered up. Now, they're shutting up.

We can only imagine what Bridget Anne Kelly is trying to hide by refusing to turn over documents to state lawmakers investigating last September's George Washington Bridge lane closures (The Record's front page today).

Many believe the resulting gridlock in Fort Lee was part of a pattern of political retribution by the Christie administration in Democratic strongholds in the months leading up to last November's election, when Christie won a second term.

Kelly, Governor Christie's former deputy chief of staff, is shown in a Page 1 photo today wearing a string of pearls, a suggestion of the noose she deserves for her infamous e-mail to the Port Authority, which operates the bridge:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Not that Kelly

Many readers are sorry the headline over a Charles Stile column on A-1 -- "Kelly looking for a new image, new job" -- doesn't refer to Mike Kelly, the tired columnist who often merely pushes around words to little effect.

Bridget Kelly's famous criminal lawyer, Michael Critchley, challenged the state Legislature's subpoenas for more documents, including earlier e-mails, "on constitutional grounds." 

He even said there is no proof she sent the e-mail that blew open the Bridgegate scandal and tied the lane closures to Christie's inner circle and his cronies at the Port Authority, including David Wildstein, who answered with an e-mail of his own, "Got it."

Exaggerated headline

The headline -- "GWB inquiry on trial" -- is the kind of simplistic ignorance that exists in most newsrooms.

And no one, including Staff Writer Shawn Boburg, believes Superior Court Assignment Judge Mary C. Jacobsen will kill the subpoenas for documents from Bridget Kelly and former Christie campaign manager Bill Stepien.

Newsroom potholes

Many drivers yawned when they saw today's Page 1 story on New Jersey's decision to repave its stretch of the Palisade Interstate Parkway, which is used by a small minority of The Record's readers.

The story, written by Road Warrior John Cichowski, continues his pattern of exaggeration and hype about potholes when he reports "some cabdrivers refuse to use the Bergen County portion."

My recollection is that a past Road Warrior column quoted one man who said his cabdriver refused to use the parkway.

Why isn't the state going to repave state highways that are in equally poor condition or award grants to municipalities like Hackensack that can't seem to find the money to repave Prospect Avenue and other pockmarked streets?

More corrections

Corrections on A-2 of a story on The Children's Place and a non-profit item have readers wondering if The Record will ever correct the hundreds of errors that have piled up in the Road Warrior column in the past decade.

The headline on A-3 today makes it sound like protesters have succeeded in getting Christie to renominate New Jersey Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, a Democrat, but the story says that isn't the case:

Protesters push

Christie to rename

Rabner to bench 

Battle of the rich

The Record has resumed its blanket coverage of the Hudson News inheritance battle, which is playing out in Superior Court in Hackensack, where James Cohen is testifying (L-1).

Publisher Stephen A. Borg has ordered Editor Marty Gottlieb to report more on the activities of multimillionaires like himself.

That will mean Staff Writer Kibret Markos, who covers the courthouse, will continue to neglect civil trials involving lesser folks.

Wrong photos

The Tesla story on L-8 uses photos of an all-electric roadster the company stopped taking orders for in August 2011. 

Why didn't the Business editors use photos of the current all-electric sedan, the Model S?

Editors' well-crafted Christie image is unraveling

For the 11th straight day, The Record is devoting a large part of the front page to the fallout from closure of two of the three lanes (right of the double-yellow lines) leading to upper-level George Washington Bridge tollbooths in Fort Lee.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

A third Democratic mayor in North Jersey is complaining about bullying by the Christie administration, The Record reports on Page 1 today.

Faced with the unraveling of Governor Christie's "bipartisan compromise" image -- as crafted by the paper's editors -- chief apologist Charles Stile's column traces the birth of the monster to campus politics 30 years ago (A-1).

How boringly irrelevant can you get? 

Photos of a thin Christie as the University of Delaware student government president bear no resemblance to the GOP bully whose weight and eating habits are lampooned by comedians.

Bridgegate jokes

On HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," the comedian addressed the Bridgegate scandal:

He noted that Christie needed to shed an unwanted 150 pounds -- a reference to Bridget Anne Kelly, the aide who was fired for her involvement in tying up traffic at the Fort Lee end of the George Washington Bridge in early September.

The lane closures on the bridge showed Christie is really good at "clogging major arteries," Maher said on Friday night. 

As for his 2-hour apology in front of the national media 10 days ago, when he claimed his staff lied to him about the plot, Christie was saying, "I'm large, but not in charge."

Ties that bind

The allegations by Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer show how the Christie team allegedly used federal Sandy aid as leverage to gain an advantage for a development tied to one of the governor's cronies -- lawyer David Samson, chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (A-1).

Samson was one of three Christie appointees to the bi-state agency, and the only one who has kept his influential patronage position in the wake of the scandal. 

Two of Christie's Trenton aides were fired.

More Bridgegate coverage appears today on front of the otherwise thin Local section (L-1), and on the Opinion front (O-1).

More error

The befuddled Road Warrior ties the politically inspired lane closures to 2013 pedestrian fatalities in Bergen County, Christie's terrible driving record before he became governor and bridge-related gridlock in Fort Lee dating to 2010.

The rambling column, by Staff Writer John Cichowski, reports the lane closures caused huge traffic problems from Sept. 9-13, even though the paper has consistently reported gridlock occurred on only four days, Sept. 9-12 (L-1).

Although Cichowski claims to have broken the story in a Sept. 13 column, The Record has acknowledged the tip came from Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who got a complaining call from a friend trying to drive into Manhattan.

Among the letters to the editor today (O-3), Ann Mancuso of Dumont appears to believe Christie, who said he was kept in the dark by his staff and Port Authority appointees:

"I voted for Christie twice, but I will never again vote for someone who doesn't know what's going on in his own office. At the least, it's annoying and at the most, it's darn dangerous."

View from Fort Lee

Mark Sokolich, Fort Lee's Democratic mayor, has called "the scheme to wreak havoc on Fort Lee's citizens 'absolute power corruption,'" The Record reported on Jan. 9.

E-mails and text messages between Christie loyalists that were revealed on Jan. 8 "suggested there was a calculated plot to cause mayhem in Fort Lee," the paper said.

One e-mail exchange referred to Sokolich as the "little Serbian," even though he is of Croatian descent, and "an idiot."

Lawyers always win

In Fort Lee, the mayor is said to own or have an interest in GW Car Service LLC, one of the cab companies that filed suit against Christie's staff, alleging they lost business during the lane closures, as reported by The Record on Tuesday.

Staff Writer Kibret Markos incorrectly called the suit a "class action," a designation that can be granted only by the judge hearing the case.

The Record still hasn't reported how much taxpayers will have to shell out for all of the high-priced legal talent being pressed into service by state legislators investigating the GWB scandal and by the Christie administration defending its actions (A-1 on Saturday).

More chopped liver

The death of a "person" in a collision on Route 20 is treated as a photo-op on Saturday's L-1 -- with no identity provided -- as is typical of the filler Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza relies on in the absence of legitimate news.

Food coverage on the Better Living cover Saturday appeared to be based on press releases, which were handled by her eminences, Food Editor Esther Davidowitz and Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung.

The free publicity ranged from the sublime (a $130 cocktail served at Grissini Restaurant in Englewood Cliffs) to the ridiculous (the crappy White Castle beef "slider," which costs 74 cents). 

Wasting readers' time is nothing new for Ung, who reviewed the mediocre Haven Riverfront Restaurant & Bar in Edgewater in Friday's Better Living tabloid (BL-14).

Today, in a column that is supposed to deal with consumer issues, she purports to explain "why certain locations spell doom for restaurants" (BL-1).

In Travel, there is little more than a seemingly endless account of a honeymoon trip by two staffers, Stephanie Akin and Shawn Boburg, both of whom are involved in Bridgegate coverage (T-1).

Akin and Boburg were an item in the old Hackensack newsroom, but she appeared to be a fashionista while he dressed like a country bumpkin.

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.

Booker and The Record are pissing off Democrats

The Statue of Liberty.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

I still haven't forgiven Newark Mayor Cory Booker for putting his personal ambitions ahead of the crying need to defeat Governor Christie, the GOP bully whose myth making is aided and abetted by The Record of Woodland Park.

Fresh from his victory in the special U.S. Senate election, Booker greeted Christie enthusiastically at a supermarket groundbreaking in Newark on Thursday -- and The Record's columnists were all over the story. 

Charles Stile, the incompetent screwball who writes about politics, has two columns today on the so-called meaning of the election results, and how Booker and Christie "locked in a warm man-hug" (A-1 and A-6).

Stile doesn't explain how a "man hug" is different than a regular hug, and conveniently omits mention of all the damage Christie's conservative polices caused in Newark and the state.

Christie's cuts in state aid forced Newark to lay off more than 200 police officers, and he's vetoed everything from a hike in the minimum wage to the millionaires' tax to legislation allowing gay marriages.

Too many columns

So much for Christies' repeated claim to have worked with Democrats in the state Legislature, and The Record's endless reporting about "bipartisanship."

Meanwhile, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin claims in his column today that the good showing of Lonegan, the crackpot former mayor of Bogota, is a win for Republicans (A-23).

It didn't help that The Record used the word "passion" to describe Lonegan's extremism and racism in his campaign against Booker.  

Why two columns on the results of the U.S. Senate contest, and no town-by-town, county-by-county tally for the election?

Let's hope Booker uses his time before he takes his seat in Washington to campaign for Barbara Buono and help the Democratic challenger further expose Christie's war on the middle and working classes.

Suit settlement

In Hackensack news, Local reports a $495,000 settlement in a sex harassment suit filed against Construction Official Joseph Mellone and City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono (L-1).

Marcella Sbarbaro, a former clerk-typist in the Building Department, claimed that Mellone forced her to have sex under threat of losing her job, and that Lo Iacono allegedly did nothing to stop the harassment.

Thanks to Production Editor Liz Houlton, the "Queen of Errors," a sub-headline and text say the woman filed her suit in 2011, but later the story says Sbarbaro "sued the city in April 2010."

Another screw up is acknowledged in an A-2 correction today.

The L-1 story doesn't say when the settlement was filed, meaning Staff Writer Kibret Markos, the Bergen County Courthouse reporter, probably missed it while he covered the Hudson News inheritance battle full time. 

Sinking feeling

Staff Writer Elisa Ung's review of Pier 115 Bar and Grill in Edgewater gives readers a queasy feeling from the first paragraph.

When the first half of her appraisal discusses parking, the view and the beer selection, the overpriced food must suck.

You also have to wonder about Ung's concept of dinner when she actually orders a $19 pretzel.

Despite all of the problems she encountered, she insists the view of the Hudson River saves the place.

But the sad history of another waterfront restaurant in Edgewater, the Binghamton ferry boat, forever put to rest that canard -- or so I thought.