Zisa-backed school trustees sworn, editors could care less

On the public Hackensack River walkway behind Pep Boys, city of Hackensack garbage cans were brimming on Sunday. An old Costco Wholesale shopping cart and other metal parts were left near a second can, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Hackensack residents won't find a word in The Record today about the swearing in of two school board members backed by the Zisa family -- a curse the city can't seem to shake.

Instead, Editor Deirdre Sykes resorts to another gee-whiz photo and story on Page 1 -- this one about lightning hitting a tree and igniting a Glen Rock house next door to the assistant fire chief (A-1).

All's well that ends well, I guess.

Mordaga leaving

Sykes and Staff Writer John Seasly do have Hackensack news today, but it has nothing to do with the city's failing elementary schools, a ballooning school budget or the attempted political comeback of former four-term Mayor Jack Zisa and brother Ken, the disgraced police chief.

Instead, they lead Local with the expected news that Mike Mordaga, a decorated police officer and detective, is leaving as the city's $150,000-a-year civilian police director after three years in the job (L-1).

Mordaga took over in February 2013, several months after a jury convicted Ken Zisa of insurance fraud and official misconduct charges.

The insurance fraud charge was thrown out by an appeals court, but the former police chief still faces a retrial on the official misconduct charge. 

The city, which has abolished the position of police chief, also has spent more than $8 million defending and settling police officers' lawsuits against Ken Zisa, who also was a Democratic state Assemblyman.

Team Hackensack

The reporter forgets to mention that Jack and Ken Zisa were prominent backers of Team Hackensack, which saw two of its three board candidates sworn in on Tuesday night in the high school media center.

The Zisas even went so far as improperly obtaining the addresses of teachers union members, and sending them letters inviting them to a Team Hackensack barbecue at the home of Anthony C. Zisa, Ken's son, who is a high school teacher.

Francis W. Albolino
 (Credit: Hackensack Board of Education)

24-year veteran

In a broadcast of the Board of Education meeting, board President Jason Nunnermacker praised Francis W. Albolino for 24 years of service as a board member or president and presented him with a plaque.

However, Nunnermacker didn't list a single accomplishment by Albolino, who retired from the volunteer position on Tuesday night.

Truck hits tree

Of course, it's possible that Seasly covered Tuesday night's Hackensack school board reorganization, but that local editors ordered the story held for breaking news -- a garbage truck hitting a tree in Ridgewood (L-3).

Page 1

Sykes continues to run state and national politics on the front page in place of real news, long after readers have gotten sick and tired of reading about the presidential campaign (A-1).

Still, The Record's story doesn't mention Governor Christie again stood behind GOP front-runner Donald Trump's left shoulder as the billionaire racist declared victory in five more primaries on Tuesday (see NJ.com: Chris, Donald and Mary Pat).

The Woodland Park daily is the only major newspaper in the state that failed to call for Christie's resignation after he dropped out of the race in February, and threw his support behind Trump.

Hackensack officer's cruiser pushed victim's sedan 40 feet

On Friday, these were two of the skid marks evident near Summit and Ross avenues in Hackensack. They were left by a police cruiser just before it slammed into the driver's side of a small sedan, fatally injuring the driver, 67-year-old John Parham of Hackensack, a security guard who lived a few blocks away.

Markings left by investigators indicate that after the collision, the police cruiser pushed the sedan more than 40 feet into the driveway of 599 Summit Ave., above. A woman who lives across the street told The Record the police car had its emergency lights flashing, but she did not hear any siren before the crash.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The acting Bergen County prosecutor and Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga aren't saying who was at fault in the collision on Thursday that fatally injured a man a few blocks from his home.

John Parham, 67, was turning left from Ross Avenue onto Summit Avenue when his small sedan was T-boned by a marked Dodge Charger being driven by Hackensack Police Officer Stephen Ochman, according to The Record.

The collision left the cruiser with "serious front-end damage" and Parham's sedan was severely damaged on the driver's side, the Woodland Park daily reports (A-1 and A-6).

That suggests the police car was traveling at a high rate of speed before the crash.

But Gurbir S. Grewal, the acting prosecutor, wouldn't say how fast the cruiser was being driven, who was at fault and whether the officer was operating his siren before the collision.

Mordaga referred questions on state guidelines for police pursuits to Grewal.

Investigators' marks

On Friday, Eye on The Record took photos of chalk marks left by investigators at the point of the collision, and where the two vehicles ended up in front of 599 Summit Ave.

Short skid marks were left by the police car's tires, indicating the officer didn't brake until just before the collision.

Media reports on Thursday quoted "responders" as saying Parham, the driver of the sedan, suddenly pulled into the path of the police car, which was responding to an emergency on the Maywood-Hackensack border.

The marks also suggest that after the collision, the cruiser pushed the small sedan more than 40 feet before both vehicles came to rest in or near the driveway of a house at 599 Summit.

Parham, who lived at 230 Ross Ave., was African-American. He was employed as a security guard at Lord & Taylor, the department store in Paramus.

He was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center, where he died of his injuries, Grewal said in a press release.

Shattered car parts, glass and other debris in front of 599 Summit Ave. in Hackensack were still evident more than 24 hours after the crash, above and below.

"RR" "LR" and "RF" indicate the final positions of the wheels and tires on the Dodge Charger Pursuit police cruiser after the collision.

The car driven on Thursday afternoon by John Parham of Hackensack ended up in the driveway and on the sidewalk in front of 599 Summit Ave. with heavy damage to the driver's side. 

The police cruiser involved in the crash can be seen between the telephone pole and the silver-colored truck.

Trump's hate speech about Muslims not far from Christie's

What appeared to be another quiet Sunday morning on Sussex Road in Teaneck was anything but when a crazed woman in an old Toyota passed a stop sign on on my right, looked my way and then drove directly in front of my car so she could get to a side street on the other side of Sussex.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Donald J. Trump's bid to bar all Muslims from the United States isn't that different from Governor Christie's attempt to keep all Syrian refugees, including orphans, out of New Jersey.

Now we know how Jews felt during the many years of persecution in Germany and other countries.

But why is Trump's speech leading Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park, especially when the rest of the page is wasted on football and the state's annual bear hunt?

Is Editor Martin Gottlieb suggesting Muslims might one day be forced to engage in blood sports in stadiums like the Roman Colosseum or be hunted like bears? 

Gottlieb, once a high-flying international editor at The New York Times, continues to bury local news and play up the sensational in an effort to sell the paper, which isn't worth anything near the $1 you have to pay for it on the newsstand.

Taxing hospitals

Gottlieb is ignoring residents of Hackensack, Englewood and other towns by running a story on non-profit hospitals on one of today's obituary pages.

Hackensack University Medical Center and other hospitals are desperately fighting attempts to end their non-profit status, which forces homeowners and others to pay much higher property taxes.

Now, a bill "worked out in agreement with the hospitals themselves" has been introduced (L-5).

But today's story doesn't address whether "defined payments" from the hospitals to help cover municipal emergency services will come close to easing the property tax burden in Hackensack and other communities.

For the past few years, HUMC has turned a deaf ear to Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga's request that medical staff be assigned to the county homeless shelter to reduce police trips to the hospital's emergency room.

Love-triangle trial

The decision of the defendant not to take the witness stand in the love-triangle murder of Robert Cantor of Teaneck is no surprise (L-1).

What was a surprise was the incredible waste of space and readers' time on Monday's front page, where Staff Writer Peter J. Sampson speculated endlessly on whether Sui Kam "Tony" Tung would testify (Monday's A-1).

HUMC, other hospitals finally address what ails taxpayers

A Joseph M. Sanzari Inc. company vehicle in Hackesnack, where the Children's Hospital at Hackesnack University Medical Center bears the name of the construction magnate.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

As Hackensack University Medical Center gobbled up the neighborhood around it, the property tax burden on every resident of the city grew heavier.

As a non-profit, hundreds of millions of dollars in HUMC property is tax-exempt, shifting the burden to home and business owners.

Today's front-page story in The Record on property tax deals with non-profit hospitals only mentions HUMC in passing.

Perfect together?

The newspaper and the hospital have a long relationship, including the years Jennifer A. Borg sat on the hospital board, and HUMC advertising appeared regularly on NorthJersey.com.

Borg is general counsel of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, which was headquartered in Hackensack for more than 110 years.

She is the older sister of Publisher Stephen A. Borg and daughter of NJMG Chairman Malcolm A. Borg.

The Record's coverage of HUMC expansion in its residential neighborhood was far less extensive than later coverage of The Valley Hospital's building plans. 

That was the case even though the Ridgewood hospital would be building within its existing campus.

In Hackensack, HUMC took a lot of residential property, including a Prospect Avenue home that housed a famous jazz studio where Thelonious Monk recorded "Hackensack" in 1954.

In recent years, the hospital has ignored Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga, who asked for the assignment of medical staff to the county shelter on South River Street to eliminate police having to take so many homeless people to the emergency room at city expense.

Neglected story

Since I moved to Hackensack in 2007, today's story may be only the first or second in The Record to discuss the burden on property tax payers of the hospital's non-profit status.

And there hasn't been any mention of two other huge Hackensack non-profits, Bergen County and Fairleigh Dickinson University, that aggravate the problem.

Nor has the Woodland Park daily reported on residents who have called on city officials to negotiate with the non-profits for regular payments or services in lieu of taxes. 

GOP bully grabs veto pen as N.J. budget battle heats up

In a 90-minute ceremony late Wednesday afternoon, more than 440 Hackensack High School students graduated in the school's 120th Commencement. This message on the back of a car in the school parking lot summed up how some of them felt.

Valedictorian Alexis Holmes, left, speaking to parents, relatives and friends of the Class of 2015.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I don't see anything in The Record today, but radio news is reporting Governor Christie is getting his veto pen ready to slash a budget plan from the Democratic majority in the state Legislature.

On Wednesday's A-3, Staff Writer Melissa Hayes seemed to emphasize "a few pet projects for powerful Democrats" over restoring women's health centers, the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor and $2.6 billion for the underfunded state pension system.

Is Hayes, who covered Christie's out-of-state appearances in pursuit of his White House dreams, really the right reporter to cover the annual budget battle?

Just below Hayes' slanted budget story, her byline appears on another report:

"Governor Christie's approval rating in New Jersey continues to fall as he hovers in the middle of the pack of likely Republican presidential candidates among New Hampshire primary voters, according to polls released on Tuesday."

Graduates were arranged in rows from the shortest in front to the tallest in back in two groups, with officials in the center, forming an "H" on the football field.

Selling LG deal

Editor Martin Gottlieb uses Page 1 today to sell the deal that will allow LG to build a five-story headquarters atop the Palisades in Englewood Cliffs (A-1).

In fact, the compromise is a dangerous precedent. The Korean company should have donated the 25 acres to the borough for a park.

Demonizing transit

Gottlieb also continues to argue that NJ Transit and other mass-transit agencies should at least break even or make money.

A so-called Page 1 analysis raises the specter of a 11% increase in fares, if the agency's unionized employees win 3% annual raises over six years.

That would be on top of a 9% fare increase and service cuts that were proposed in response to Christie slashing state subsidies to NJ Transit.

This story and others on the state budget budget seem to be written from Christie's point of view, even though editorials in the Woodland Park daily have criticized the governor for his refusal to raise the low gasoline tax, which helps fund mass transit.

Corrections

On A-2 today, the editors acknowledge three errors, and provide news on the whereabouts of a missing stock page.

Breaking news

The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld the latest Republican challenge to the Affordable Care Act, ruling President Obama's health-care law may provide nationwide subsidies to help poor and middle-class people buy insurance.

In a letter to the editor today, Bob Verbeek of Leonia wrote about how the federal health-car law is working (A-10).

He also slammed Christie "for pandering to the Tea Party crowd in his bid for president" by refusing to set up a state exchange to enroll New Jersey residents.

   

Board of Education President Jason Nunnermacker, a lawyer, said nothing memorable in his address to Hackensack High School graduates. In fact, none of the speakers exhorted the students to try and make the world a better place.

Guests were forced to sit under a hot sun on cramped, metal bleachers overlooking the football field.

Hackensack news

Today's Local section leads with a report on Tuesday night's City Council meeting in Hackensack, where officials announced the formation of a task force "to help people with mental illnesses" (L-1).

Police Director Mike Mordaga is quoted as saying the department "had 20 stun guns on order" before recent fatal police shootings of two Hispanic residents, but officers are awaiting "training" by the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

This story and earlier ones don't explain why a police officer who is already trained to kill an armed suspect with a single gunshot needs to be trained in the use of a Taser or stun gun.

Not working out

Why does today's Business page carry an upbeat, highly promotional story from The Associated Press on one-room gyms in Manhattan (L-8)?

LG deal in Englewood Cliffs exposes big flaw of home rule

On a busy street near Palisade Avenue in wealthy Englewood Cliffs, domestic workers have to walk on the pavement, close to speeding cars, because the borough never installed sidewalks.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Is Englewood Cliffs anything like Hackensack, once known derisively as "Zisaville" for the decades-long political dominance of a single family?

On the front page of The Record today, a photo shows Englewood Cliffs Mayor Joseph Parisi applauding a deal between LG Electronics and environmentalists (A-1).

But the upbeat coverage sounds more like public relations than objective reporting (A-1 and A-8).

And it doesn't explore the decades-long rule of the Parisi family in the Cliffs, just as The Record hasn't done any probing in Cliffside Park, dominated for more than 50 years by the Calabreses.

Home-rule communities like Englewood Cliffs resist consolidating services with neighboring towns, and are desperate for ratables to cover the resulting inefficiences.

Englewood Cliffs fought a "racially tinged legal battle" to remove its students from Englewood's Dwight Morrow High School that began in 1985 and dragged on for years, The Record has reported.

Then, in October 2014, the state decided to cut nearly $600,000 in aid for 33 students from the Cliffs who were attending Dwight Morrow's Academies, a magnet program.

Hungry for ratables

More tax revenue was likely the motive for the borough to throw out its 35-foot height restriction, and approve the Korean company's plan for a 143-foot-high building on 27 acres between Sylvan Avenue and the Hudson River.

Now, the height will be reduced to 69 feet or five stories, but that still will be the biggest building ever approved for the Palisades north of the George Washington Bridge.

And in return for despoiling the majestic cliffs, Parisi and other borough officials will be celebrating an additional $2.5 million in property tax revenue every year.

Cliffs resident Donald Rizzo, who favored the higher LG headquarters, put it succinctly in a sidebar with a sub-headline reading, "Residents will benefit from revenue."

"A bigger building means more tax revenue. I'm all for it. I was never worried about the height of the building. I was worried about letting LG go" (A-8).

Maybe, the town can now afford to put in sidewalks on Summit Street to protect pedestrians and dog walkers.

In the county seat

In Hackensack, dozens of lawsuits filed against Ken Zisa, the former police chief and state assemblyman, cost the city so many millions to settle that one block of Euclid Avenue hasn't been paved for 30 years.

Prospect Avenue, lined with high-rises, and many other streets are in such poor condition one resident at Tuesday night's City Council meeting compared them to T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land."

Hackensack's school board spends more money per pupil than Ridgewood's, yet feeds high school students food of such low quality that many race out to Starbucks, Chipotle Mexican Grill and other lunch spots.

Hackensack's property tax payers are so shell shocked they even objected to the city spending public funds on a downtown park and arts space as part of the redevelopment of Main Street.

Hackensack news?

On the front of Local today, Teaneck residents find two stories on Monday night's Township Council meeting (L-1).

But there is nothing about Tuesday night's council meeting in Hackensack.

As Police Director Mike Mordaga and Capt. Timothy Lloyd listened, clergy from Mount Olive Baptist Church and other churches commented on the killing of two suspects by city police officers in recent weeks.

They urged Hackensack to find money to buy Tasers or non-fatal stun guns.

As a result of the shootings, five police officers are "on leave," city officials acknowledged, but they insisted the department is not "understaffed."

HUMC pact

A lawyer hired by the city reported a federal anti-kickback law prohibits Hackensack from continuing to ask Hackensack University Medical Center to provide ambulance services to residents for free up to $140,000 a year. 

Still, Board of Education attorney Richard Salkin rose and rambled on about the lawsuit he has filed to enforce the original 2008 pact with HUMC that he negotiated for the city.

Columns, debates, what-ifs -- another boring front page

Gasoline is still under $2 a gallon at this station in Teaneck.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

BORING!!!!!

Despite all his accomplishments at The New York Times, Editor Martin Gottlieb continues to bore readers of The Record of Woodland Park.

I can't imagine a duller front page for a Sunday edition than the one I'm looking at today.

Not one, but two tedious columns. A news story about a U.S. senator I never heard of, a Republican named Corker. And a story on a Teaneck doctor who "interviews pilots about their health."

Corruption

If readers bother plowing through the lead Page 1 column on former Bergen County Democratic chief Joseph Ferriero and U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, they will search in vain for an opinion from the burned-out reporter who has been churning out this kind of crap since 1988 (A-1).

Gottlieb must think all you have to do to have a column is add a dated thumbnail photo of Mike Kelly's shit-eating grin.

But readers look to Kelly for an opinion about the corrupt campaign-finance system and whether he believes greed led Ferriero and Menendez to violate the public trust. (See editorial on O-2 today.)

You won't find any opinions in his overlong column, just a rewrite of all that has appeared so far on the corruption charges against the two men and the "profound questions" they raise.

Local news

At least today's Local section actually found municipal news to report: 

Three stories about Englewood -- two by a weekly reporter -- but only one each from Teaneck and Hackensack.

Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga told Staff Writer Todd South a police captain filed a lawsuit only after he was passed over for a promotion to top commander (L-1).

Commenting on the suit by Capt. Thomas Salcedo, Mordaga says "he's broken no laws and that the department has followed all rules and guidelines."

Mordaga also said Salcedo was named in several lawsuits filed by police officers who were under his command, and all were settled by the city.

Trucks, litter

Road Warrior John Cichowski once again explores the irrelevant with today's column on highway litter (L-1).

Most drivers are slobs. What can you do? 

His previous column was on tractor-trailers that used residential streets. Wow! 

Hey, Cichowski, there are way too many cars clogging our streets and highways. 

You should be writing about the sorry state of mass transit and other commuting topics, but you're too lazy for that, and your editors are too stupid to notice.

Healthy eating

John Petrick was a feature writer in the old Hackensack newsroom who got on somebody's shit list and was exiled to cover the Passaic County Courthouse in Paterson.

He worked there for several years, and did a terrific job covering trials and indictments in the busy courthouse.

Now, he's back writing features. Today, he has finally awakened to the trend of people trying to eat healthy when they go out to restaurants (BL-1).

But Petrick doesn't explain why Elisa Ung, the paper's chief restaurant critic, is always making a pig of herself, gorging on enormous cuts of questionable beef and artery clogging desserts.

As for Ung, her column today again takes the focus off of restaurants serving low-quality food at high prices, such as those steakhouses she loves (BL-1).

What revolution?

Sadly, the "retail revolution" reported on today's Business section cover has nothing to do with the return of real customer service (B-1).

Report: Woman hit by cop's car fell with feet in crosswalk

The Hackensack Police Department report on the March 9 pedestrian fatality on Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street includes a diagram showing that the victim, Hue D. Dang, landed with her feet in the crosswalk after she was struck by a detective's unmarked car, above. The police officer who wrote the report says the diagram is "an approximation."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Hackensack police will not be filing any charges against a Bergen County Prosecutor's Office detective in the death of a woman, even though their report shows she landed with her feet in the crosswalk after he struck her with his unmarked car on March 9.

This afternoon, police insisted they still do not know where the victim, Hue D. Dang, 64, of Hackensack, was standing or walking when she was struck and fatally injured by Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero's car.

Police Director Mike Mordaga and Capt. Nicole Foley were not available for comment today. Foley, head of the traffic division, was quoted in The Record's March 11 story on the accident.

Mordaga was chief of detectives in the Prosecutor's Office until 2007. He took over as director of the Hackensack department in February 2013. 

Maureen Parenta, communications director for Prosecutor John L. Molinelli, said the office would have no comment because one of its members was involved.

Hackensack Police Officer Timothy Sroka said the diagram in his report is "an approximation," adding police still do not know where the woman was when she was struck by Straniero's silver Ford Crown Victoria.

The report, apparently based on statements from Detective Straniero, cited a fence with aluminum slats "which partially obstructed view on northwest corner of Kennedy Street and Jackson Avenue."

"There was also a large amount of sun glare from the west as the sun was low in the sky at the time," the report says.

Sroka wouldn't answer a natural question: How can a driver kill a woman and not be charged with anything?

The documents turned over to Eye on The Record after an Open Public Records Act request included a report that Sroka took a video statement from Detective Straniero at 10 a.m. on March 10, the day after the accident.

Today, Eye on The Record filed an OPRA request for the transcript of that interview. 

Eye on The Record also has contacted the state police and state Attorney General's Office to express concern that the detective escaped even a traffic charge, such as failing to yield to a pedestrian.

See previous posts:

Residents: Detective's car struck woman near crosswalk

Cops won't release fatality report without OPRA request

The "RR" markings on the pavement show the car, driven by Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, stopped with the right rear wheel in the Jackson Avenue crosswalk after knocking down the 5-foot, 100-pound woman.

After the accident on March 9, the victim's blood stained the pavement, right. Police said she was bleeding "from her ears, eyes, nose, and head," and was pronounced dead less than an hour later at Hackensack University Medical Center. The woman landed on her back parallel to the passenger side of the car, police said, so her feet could have been in the crosswalk, left.

The crosswalk and corner where the woman was fatally injured, in a photo I took from behind the wheel of my car today. The police report cited the fence, right, as "partially" obstructing the view of the corner. Aluminum slats on the fence were removed after the accident.

Who was Hue Dang?

Hue D. Dang lived in an apartment building on Hudson Street, between Route 80 and Kennedy Street, only a few blocks away from where she was fatally injured.

People who live nearby said she was carrying plastic grocery bags when she was hit by the detective's car.

She worked as a cashier at the ShopRite in Paramus until 2013, one of her relatives said.

In 1975, Dang and seven siblings came to the United States with their parents as refugees from the Vietnam War.

Today's paper

Editor Martin Gottlieb again screws North Jersey readers with a front page dominated by an air disaster in Europe and Sen. Bob Menendez's legal troubles (A-1).

The Local front is filled with a huge, gee-whiz accident photo from Route 208, and Pages L-1, L-2 and L-3 have lots of court and police news for crime and lawsuit junkies.

'Wildly expensive'

Staff Writer Elisa Ung chose the "wildly expensive" Grissini in Englewood Cliffs to review.

She and a co-worker blew hundreds of dollars on two dinners of Italian-American food, rating the noisy restaurant Good to Excellent (BL-14).

Ung gorged on a $48 rack of lamb, but didn't bother to grill the owner on whether the meat was naturally raised. Ditto for a hunk of filet mignon at $45.

And she had to sample two artery clogging desserts, zabaglione at $30 for two and a ricotta cheese cake with tiramisu for $9.

Her Friday reviews continue to run with the same coy thumbnail photo she has been using since 2006, but it's time to update it and include her double chin.

LOL: Cops make Page 1 for enforcing traffic laws

A long, elaborate wheelchair ramp connects the Avalon luxury apartment complex on Hackensack Avenue in Hackensack with the Home Depot Shopping Center. The rent for a 483-square-foot studio is $2,165 a month, according to the Avalon Communities Web site. The apartments, built between two shopping centers, are perfect for shopaholics.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's Dave Sheingold seems to have a bug up his ass that the annual police crackdown on seat-belt and child-restraint violators is catching a growing number of uninsured, drunk and reckless drivers (A-1).

Is there something wrong with that or with the extra revenue collected by cash-strapped towns, where property taxes seem to climb inexorably amid declining services?

During the two-week 2013 Click It or Ticket Campaign, Hackensack police issued 1,587 summonses -- triple the number given out in other communities -- but only 17.4% for seat-belt violations (A-8).

Does anybody care but the law-breaking drivers who were undone by the aggressive enforcement of traffic laws that began with the appointment of Police Director Mike Mordaga in February 2013.

Quoting morons

The anal Sheingold, the paper's computer-assisted numbers cruncher, even quotes Steve Carrellas, the moron who calls himself the "New Jersey coordinator" of the National Motorists Association, whatever that is.

"It's turning into a stop-and-fleece program. You're stopping people and taking their money away," claims Carrellas, who proves reporters will quote the most idiotic person they can find just to stir up needless controversy (A-8).

Someone should tell Carrellas driving is a privilege, not a right, and if reckless drivers, speeders, drunks, car thieves and other law-breakers are taken off the road, that's great.

We need the money

And if there is even a small chance Hackensack can use the extra money to help it climb out of the deep financial hole dug by Zisa family allies in the past decade, I say hooray.

As  a property taxpayer, I can't wait for the time when hundreds of red-light and speeding cameras are installed to generate real money for towns.

That's especially the case in Hackensack, where officials have been reluctant to ask Hackensack University Medical Center and other tax-exempt entities to contribute financially to the city, which was fleeced by Ken Zisa, the corrupt former police chief and state assemblyman.

Hackensack should follow Jersey City, which is seeking $400 million from the Port Authority in a federal lawsuit that alleges the bistate agency "is not giving enough financial assistance in exchange for dozens of tax-exempt properties" (A-3).

Lazy reporting

Why does reader Dom Calicchio have to point out problems at NJ Transit's Kingsland rail station in Lyndhurst (A-15 letter to the editor)?

Transportation reporter Karen Rouse and Road Warrior John Cichowski should get off their duffs and give commuters firsthand reports on rail and bus service.

Apparently, they've been infected by the lazy bug that long ago bit Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, who run the local-news assignment desk.

Sykes and Sforza had to fill today's thin Local section with two long wire-service obituaries for an obscure Venezuelan ex-president and a screenwriter nobody knows (L-5).

Reporters, editors, sources say the stupidest things

Road Warrior John Cichowski is back today, again making excuses for the slow pace of pothole repairs, this time on Route 4 and environs. In the process, the befuddled reporter misspells the name of Hackensack's upscale shopping center -- just one of the errors that sailed past The Record's six-figure production editor, Liz Houlton.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

That apologist, Columnist Charles Stile, is back on Page 1 of The Record today, claiming Governor Christie "successfully" cast himself as a "reformer, fiscal hawk [and] champion of the beleaguered middle class."

"Successfully"? That goes against any objective standard:

The state economy is a wreck, job creation lags, local property tax increases continue to hit the middle class and New Jersey can't even afford to fill potholes expeditiously.

Playing dumb

Stile's column on Christie's second-term "narrative" is among the stupid things that have been coming out of the mouths of reporters, editors and news sources recently.

In Wednesday's paper, another big Christie fan, Staff Writer Melissa Hayes, ended her story on a Sandy aid town meeting in Toms River by saying one questioner asked "how the Affordable Care Act would affect senior citizens on Medicare" (Wednesday's A-6).

Hayes doesn't seem to know the answer: That seniors are unaffected and are still covered by Medicare, and that the act expands the pool of people under 65 who are eligible for Medicaid.

Nor, apparently, does the reporter know or care that Christie accepted federal money to expand Medicaid coverage in New Jersey, while he sabotaged the roll-out of the federal health-care program for everyone else by refusing to set up a state exchange.

So, she allows the GOP bully to take a potshot at President Obama, reporting Christie "suggested voters elect a new president."

Of course, before Bridgegate and Tollgate, Christie likely would have suggested they elect him president.

Cops and doughnuts

Retiring police chiefs continue to get away with murder -- at the expense of taxpayers.

A front-page story today reports the borough of Cliffside Park hid tens of thousands of dollars going to Chief Donald Keane, and it took a lawsuit by North Jersey Media Group to uncover the details -- a total package of more than $262,000 (A-1).

When is the last time The Record blasted Christie for giving a pass to local, doughnut-chomping police chiefs when he placed a ceiling of $175,000 on the salaries of school superintendents?

And the paper could urge towns to follow Hackensack's example and appoint a police director, such as Mike Mordaga, who cracked down on quality-of-life and drug crimes in his first year. He is paid $150,000 a year.

Euclid Avenue in Hackensack.

Holes in his head

Road Warrior John Cichowski is likely one of the stupidest and laziest reporters at The Record, constantly using words improperly, exaggerating reality and failing even to accurately report the MVC regulations that he cites so obsessively.

Today, he writes about "incessant" traffic lights on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Paterson, and "silky" road conditions (L-1).

Is he smoking medical marijuana for his early Alzheimer's?

A photo caption with his column today describes "potholes riddling" the Garden State Plaza parking lot, although only one large crater is clearly visible (L-1).

It's more likely errors are "riddling" today's column.

And on L-7, Cichowski misspells The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack as "The Shoppes at Riverside," an embarrassing mistake given all the copy devoted to mall retailers whose advertising revenue enriches the Borg publishing family.

No apology, no blame

Today, Cichowski reports the state Department of Transportation "offers no apology" for all of the unfilled potholes on Route 4 and other highways.

But none of his three "black hole" columns have explained whether money from the state Transportation Trust Fund could speed pothole repairs, if the fund wasn't bankrupt and Christie didn't refuse to raise the low gas tax that feeds it.

Readers shouldn't hold their breath for Cichowski to act like a real columnist and blast state and local officials for the half-assed job they have done fixing potholes.

A recent editorial approved by Editor Alfred P. Doblin said cavalierly that no one is to blame for unfilled potholes. 

The state and towns don't have the money? Give us long-suffering taxpayers a break.

Sleeping editors

In Better Living today, the editors managed to find a new restaurant that tries to address customers' concerns about the harmful animal antibiotics and growth hormones used to raise beef, pork and other meat (BL-1 and BL-3).

Amore Tuscan Grille in Englewood Cliffs serves a "wild board stew" with polenta ($28).

For that typo, someone should take a board to the ample derriere of Production Editor Liz Houlton, who gets paid six figures to catch such boo-boos.