Let's hope for beginning of the end of Christie nightmare

This image of Donald Trump, winner of the New Hampshire Republican primary on Tuesday, was part of an art exhibit last month at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Would you just look at that sad mug on the front page of The Record today.

Staff Photographer Kevin R. Wexler captured a humiliated Governor Christie, who appears to have had the stuffing knocked out of him in New Hampshire primary voting on Tuesday, when he finished sixth (A-1).

Where is the GOP bully who has terrorized New Jersey, and created crises on affordable housing, transportation funding, the state pension system and so many other important issues?

Garden State residents are hoping Christie will drop out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination, bringing our nightmare closer to an end.

Then, he can devote the nearly two years he has left in office to reaching a compromise with the state Legislature's majority Democrats.

Or, will he continue to wage war on the middle class, and add to his 500-plus vetoes with the support of The Record, including booster Charles Stile, the paper's chief political columnist? 

Local news? 

Today's paper is missing an editorial on what Christie's future should be, and six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton signed off on an embarrassing typo in the first paragraph of a sensational crime story.

Crime and court news dominate the front of today's local-news section, including a huge photo of the "knockout suspect" and his high-priced defense attorney (L-1).

Pony tailed attorney Harvey Breite is a master at working the media, as you can see from the big, black headline that has absolutely no attribution -- a no-no in print journalism:

'Knockout' suspect

on anti-psychotic drugs

Is Breite also a doctor? 

Taking the word of a well-paid defense attorney, especially outside of court, just shows how desperate and gullible the paper's local editors are as they scramble to fill their thin section. 

Can you imagine the size of the retainer Breite demanded from the family of suspect Kristian Gonzales, 18, and his family?

It's probably on the order of $10,000 just to appear in court, with reams of legal bills to follow, if the case goes to trial.

Bad typo

Almost as embarrassing as that headline is the typo in the first, long and tortured paragraph of the story by Staff Writer Minjae Park:

A comma appears in the word "depic,ted," stopping readers dead.

How did this happen? 

Was Houlton, the production editor, asleep at her computer or did she go home early, leaving the production of the paper to her incompetent staff of news editors and proofers? 

The economic decision nearly a decade ago to move printing of The Record to Rockaway Township continues to haunt the newsroom in Woodland Park.

At the old Hackensack headquarters, the first good copies off of the press would be rushed up to the newsroom, and copy editors would leaf through the entire paper, looking for typos and other errors in headlines and text.

Then, the presses would be stopped and the corrections made.

Today, no one in the newsroom looks at the first copies, and readers apparently are the ones who see the errors first.

First in fat news

Staff Writer Elisa Ung, the paper's chief restaurant reviewer, was plump when she first came to The Record nearly a decade ago.

And it's no wonder in view of her obsession for dessert, as readers can see in today's lavishly promotional Better Living cover on chocolate (BL-1).

Appropriately, one bakery calls its $14 creation: "Death by Chocolate."

Readers looking for healthy food will be hard put to find it:

A chef's recipe on BL-2 calls for 3 pounds of jumbo lump crab meat combined with 25 ounces of cream cheese and an entire pound of Mascarpone cheese.

And clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson in Upper Saddle River recommends an Easy Banana Cake with lots of butter, sugar and cream cheese (BL-2).

What do Hackensack residents get for their high taxes?

Hackensack gives property tax payers a 10-day grace period, so 1st-quarter payments are due on Wednesday. When is the last time you saw a story -- any story -- about local property taxes in The Record of Woodland Park?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If you live in Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood, Ridgewood or another community with a tax-exempt hospital, you are paying more for such services as police protection and garbage collection.

In fact, residents are subsidizing the non-profit medical complexes, and in Hackensack, that means the city is powerless to collect more than $10 million on $257 million in tax-exempt property.

And Hackensack residents also are saddled with tax-exempt property owned by Bergen County, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Eastwick College and others.

All of them add to the disproportionate financial burden carried by residential and commercial property owners -- higher taxes that have been totally ignored by the local editors at The Record of Woodland Park.

At the same time, it's unclear what, if anything, those non-profits have returned to the city in lieu of taxes.

$4.5M payment

On Jan. 26, the Hackensack City Council voted to approve a settlement of claims, "some going back decades," that requires Hackensack University Medical Center to pay $4.5 million over three years.

The agreement also includes "which properties owned by HUMC and/or affiliated entities shall remain taxable."

HUMC also will pay $200,000 annually for pedestrian-bridge air rights on Atlantic and Second streets dating to December 2009, officials said.

City services

I've lived in Hackensack since 2007, and I'm pretty happy with police and fire protection, and other city services, with the exception of sloppy snow plowing, which endangers drivers and pedestrians.

Street paving also seems to be hit and miss, with some blocks showing rough patches after being neglected for more than 30 years.

And the city's free-spending Board of Education has been a thorn in taxpayers' sides, operating this year on a $106 million budget that exceeds the city's own.

My school taxes are 44.13% of my total property tax bill.

Police report

In a year-end report, Hackensack police said they issued 6,981 moving violations, but I still see stop-sign runners almost every day, especially at Euclid Avenue and the railroad tracks, where there are four stop signs.

The report listed 2,048 accidents, two fatal, and 465 "hit & run."

"Both burglaries and robberies in 2014 and 2015 were reported to be the lowest in past 30 years," the report stated.

"The Police Department worked closely" with the [tax-exempt] county homeless shelter on South River Street "in addressing the concerns of the homeless."

The report was silent on whether HUMC has agreed to provide medical staff who could help police cut down on the large number of trips transporting homeless people from the shelter to the hospital's emergency room -- another story The Record has ignored.

Hackensack news?

Staff Writer Todd South didn't cover the Jan. 26 City Council meeting in Hackensack or the two meetings before that.

South, who has been promoted to the Bergen County government beat from his Hackensack duties, today reports on a regional high school poetry contest (L-1).

In today's thin Local section, you'll find municipal news from East Rutherford, Rutherford, Leonia, Waldwick and Rockleigh, but nothing from Hackensack.

A brief on L-3 today must make the 535 residents of Rockleigh feel really safe, and speaks volumes about how North Jersey is poorly served by the home-rule system of local government.

The borough's Fire Department has only two fire engines, so the council "is exploring" an agreement to "borrow" a vehicle in an emergency.

Staff Writer Marc Lightdale doesn't shed any light on whether the vehicle would be another firetruck.

Page 1

Editor Deirdre Sykes and Managing Editor Dan Sforza have been in their new positions for only 10 days, but their front-pages have been uniformly disappointing.

Today's is dominated by politics and sports -- again.

Sykes and Sforza still can't shake their old roles as local assignment editors who did their best to screw readers searching for news of their town.

Does anybody still read Columnist Charles Stile's almost daily assessment of Governor Christie's doomed campaign for the GOP presidential nomination (A-1)?

The CNN Poll of Polls is reporting Christie will be the choice of only 5% of New Hampshire Republican primary voters or seventh in the field of eight -- just above Dr. Ben Carson's 3%.

In and out of court, noose tightening round Christie's neck

By noon on Friday, the slushy snow that fell overnight and into the morning had melted, leaving behind tree branches coated in winter white. Hackensack residents were relieved in view of all the problems left behind by city crews after the blizzard in late January.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In New Jersey, the tide of public opinion has turned hard against Governor Christie.

But at The Record of Woodland Park, editors, columnists and reporters today are focusing instead on New Hampshire, where the GOP bully is trying to salvage his campaign for the party's presidential nomination (A-1 and O-1).

Christie finished a dismal 10th in the Iowa caucuses, but last week, he suffered setbacks in and out of court in New Jersey, as The Record reported on Saturday.

They are likely to seal his fate.

Two judges

The lead story on Saturday's front page reported a federal judge gave defendants in the Bridgegate scandal the power to seek emails and other documents withheld by the law firm that whitewashed Christie's role in the Fort Lee lane closings.

But it was public statements by another judge that helped galvanize public opinion in the Garden State, though Editor Deirdre Sykes did her best to mute the criticism by keeping the story off of Saturday's front page:

Deborah Poritz, a Republican who served as chief justice from 1996 to 2006, took Christie "to task ... for being a 'bully' who has not built a legacy of serving the public after more than six years in office" (Saturday's A-3).

She noted Christie has been "scapegoating public workers" in New Jersey for years, and slammed his budget cuts.

No 'legacy'

"What is his legacy? Because I don't see any," Poritz said at a Thursday night forum in the Princeton Public Library.

Then, WNYC-FM reporter Matt Katz, who just published a biography of Christie, "American Governor," was put in the uncomfortable position of defending the governor he has exposed in the public radio station's "Christie Tracker" feature. 

At the end of Saturday's story, Staff Writer Salvador Rizzo noted in 2013, Supreme Court Justice Barry Albin condemned Christie for attempting to intimidate the judiciary and unseating the only black justice on the high court.

Other news?

Today's front page is dominated by the last GOP debate before the voting in New Hampshire, and yet another boring Christie column by Staff Writer Charles Stile -- in case readers missed Saturday's A-1 assessment by Staff Writer Dustin Racioppi.

Also on Page 1 today is a long story about Teaneck dermatologist Gangaram Ragi, who had been accused of sexually assaulting two women.

Inadvertently, the headline writer turned off readers immediately by putting the year 2001 in big black type.

This 14-year-old story was written by Jean Rimbach, one of the women in the newsroom who have thrived under Sykes, a plump Mother Hen to her and other female reporters.

Local news?

Today's local-news section has less Law & Order news than Saturday's, but both are silent on Hackensack, which apparently has no reporter assigned to it.

The section leads with a story on a judge releasing an affordable-housing plan "paid for by 270 municipalities" in New Jersey, but the names of towns are missing (L-1).

Road Warrior John Cichowski compares drivers to doctors and plumbers who update "their training when renewing their licenses every few years" (L-1).

He claims people "drive 3,000-pound machines that dodge traffic at 65 mph or more," and notes he took a driving safety class in Fort Lee, "where a certain Hudson River bridge causes bumper-to-bumper bedlam."

This is journalism? What do traffic jams have to do with driver retraining?

Another typo

For the second time recently, a photo caption includes an extra "s" in Palisade Avenue, this time in Englewood (L-6).

The photo shows first responders clearing the scene of a "two-car crash at Grand and Palisades avenues."

In fact, one of the vehicles is shown on the sidewalk on Engle Street, the continuation of Grand.

Failed columnist

If you doubt The Record soft-pedals the damage Christie has caused in New Jersey, take a look at another ridiculously long and boring column from Mike Kelly on the Opinion front.

The burned-out columnist claims Christie's future hinges on the outcome in New Hampshire, when readers know it's the mean-spirited policies he's rammed through in New Jersey that make residents' blood boil (O-1).

Then, Kelly tries to convince readers Christie "should have been a Democrat" (O-4).

What a moron.

We'd all be better off if Christie moved to New Hampshire

Governor Christie in a moment that cements his reputation as the GOP bully.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's lead story today -- how New Jersey lost out on tens of millions in federal disaster aid -- only rubs salt in the wounds of residents who have been seduced and abandoned by their governor.

Yet, Editor Martin Gottlieb again gives Columnist Charles Stile front-page play to argue that campaigning in New Hampshire is more important to Christie's future than coming home to help the state weather a big snowstorm. (A-1 and A-6).

If Stile, the paper's chief Christie apologist, doesn't make you hurl, take a look at the idiotic headline:

Christie shelters in place

Readers still are waiting for The Record to call for the impeachment of a governor who time and again has put his selfish ambitions above the welfare of residents.

Or, at least demand that Christie resign, give up his million-dollar state police protection and move to New Hampshire as he pursues his doomed bid for the GOP presidential nomination.

Local news?

Bergen County readers continue to get a good spanking from local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, who are in charge of the paper's thin local-news section.

Four of the five stories on their Local front today are from Passaic County (L-1).

Three Paterson stories appear on L-2 and L-3, and Pompton Lakes police news can be found on L-5.

The inside pages also carry plenty of crime and court news, including a long, flattering story on the Bergen County Police Academy (L-3).

Hackensack?

There is no municipal news from Hackensack, as has been the case for weeks. 

And school board stories from Clifton (L-1), Elmwood Park and Saddle River (L-6) only remind Hackensack residents they haven't seen a story on their profligate school trustees for more than, what, a year or is it two?

You're mistaken if you think care is taken in the writing and editing of stories, as shown by a mangled sentence in the police academy story referring to Bergen County Corrections Officer Alex Herrera:

"Corrections officers, as he's been since 2005, are limited to posts at the jail and the academy" (L-3).

Ignoring readers

It isn't news that Elisa Ung, the paper's chief restaurant critic, ignores the dietary restrictions of most of her readers, whether they are on a low-carb, low-fat or low-cholesterol diet or are watching their intake of sugar and other sweets.

Today, she recklessly awards 3 out of 4 stars to Porto by Antonio, a North Bergen restaurant that not only charges up to $23 for a 12-inch pizza, but actually fries the dough of another pie (BL-12).

Ung raves the fried pie is "less heavy" and "more subtly rich" than other versions she has tried.

With more Christie in N.H. on front page, readers' eyes roll

Waiting for an NJ Transit train to pass in Hackensack. Since Governor Christie took office in early 2010, traffic congestion has worsened, but mass transit has stood still. Yet The Record continues to cover the governor's star-crossed bid for the White House.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Governor Christie is being counted out as the GOP presidential nominee in 2016 by everyone but The Record of Woodland Park.

Running one Page 1 column after another on how he is doing in Iowa, New Hampshire or some other state with an early primary has alienated North Jersey readers.

Their eyes roll just at the sight of Staff Writer Charles Stile's outdated thumbnail photo (A-1).

Political satirist Bill Maher not only has stopped telling fat jokes about Christie he didn't even mention the GOP bully on Friday night's "Real Time with Bill Maher" when discussing the recent GOP debate.

Local news?

The local-news section is so weak some desperate editor had to run the arrest of two New York State men with 400 bags of heroin on the front today (L-1).

Franklin Lakes seeking an interim trustee also is deemed big news (L-1).

Meanwhile, I can't recall a single story about school board members in Hackensack whose budget has grown to exceed the city's own.

Gee-whiz news

What's the point of a new column by Travel Editor Jill Schensul on the Better Living front (BL-1)?

Today, she lists the most expensive travel destinations in the world. Gee-whiz.

Why not discuss two great cities, Montreal and Toronto, where a strong U.S. dollar means Americans get 20% to 25% off of everything they purchase -- from hotel rooms to concerts to lunches in fine-dining restaurants?

If Schensul's column is supposed to help travelers get the most from their money, the joke is on readers.

Christie has been lying to N.J. voters since '09 campaign

Further adventures in navigating Bergen County's antiquated road system: A short drive from Englewood to Hackensack at about 4:30 Wednesday afternoon was agonizingly slow, especially when a tractor-trailer tried to turn into narrow Forest Avenue in Teaneck from Teaneck Road, above and below. I guess it would be too much to expect the cops to direct rush-hour traffic, as they do in Manhattan.

Cedar Lane in Teaneck is always a challenging drive, especially during the afternoon rush hour, with township police lying in wait for drivers who don't yield to pedestrians in the many crosswalks. An elderly woman trying to back into a parking space too small for her car stopped one lane of traffic dead for several minutes.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today's Page 1 story on Governor Christie holding town-hall events in New Hampshire is the second to tell readers what they already know from his 2009 New Jersey campaign and his record since he took office.

Or, as The Record's so-called analysis puts it:

"Like politicians from time immemorial, [Christie] tends to gloss over the weak spots or present them in a more favorable -- sometimes less accurate -- light" (A-1).

What State House Bureau reporters Salvador Rizzo and Melissa Hayes are trying to say is that Christie, in an apparent bid for the GOP presidential nomination, lies a lot.

Just like he did when he was swept into office in November 2009 after promising to lower New Jersey's notoriously high property taxes and force inefficient home-rule towns to consolidate agencies.

Censorship

On the Local front today, censorship of a high school newspaper editor isn't much different than squelching any mention in The Record that Christie's chief gubernatorial fundraiser, Jon F. Hanson, has close personal and business ties to the Borgs, who own the paper (L-1).

Ed Schwartz, 47, of Ridgewood is an expert on sustainability known as "Eco Ed," The Record reports today (L-1).

But why did the Woodland Park daily wait until Schwartz's final "battle" with cancer to profile him?

An Associated Press brief on the Business page reports the Urus SUV is expected to be sold in 2018 "with a production of 3,000 vehicles a year, more than doubling Lamborghini's current output of 2,530" (L-7).

Second look

Despite its extraordinary length -- or because of it -- Mike Kelly's 100-plus-inch column on Rabbi Shmuley Boteach of Englewood got only limited reaction from readers on North Jersey.com.

And most of the comments were negative. It's unclear how many readers actually plowed through the entire, long-winded puff piece, which started on Page 1.

One North Jersey.com reader refers to the rabbi as "Shmuckley."

Kelly's Sunday column runs on the front of the Opinion section.

Why wasn't his Boteach column labeled "Opinion"?