In reporting Hackensack news, editors ignore big conflict

One of the projects proposed Tuesday night would return Hackensack's Main and State streets to two-way traffic, something that many residents and merchants have long hoped for as they try to navigate the congested business district. This photo was taken in late January, when parking was banned on one side of Main to clear away snow.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today, The Record carries a follow-up to Tuesday night's Hackensack City Council meeting, where officials proposed four major downtown and recreation projects.

In the second paragraph, Staff Writer John Seasly quotes Chief Financial Officer James Mangin saying the projects wouldn't increase taxes.

Seasly actually wrote that Mangin "insisted" taxes wouldn't go up, as if the reporter had contradictory information in hand.

Still, even that wasn't sexy enough. 

Seasly later quotes a resident, Chris Colli, asking, "How much more of a tax increase will that equate to for this town?"

Seasly doesn't say if Colli is hard of hearing, came in late or just missed Mangin's statement.

The proposals are scheduled to be presented at a public hearing on April 4, when a final vote will be taken.

Towns v. hospitals

To many residents, a far more controversial issue is major non-profit institutions that pay reduced or no taxes, shifting the burden onto Hackensack homeowners and commercial property owners.

A front-page story today reports Teaneck and Englewood have joined a growing number of towns challenging the tax-exempt status of their local hospitals (A-1).

The Record's report doesn't even mention Hackensack University Medical Center, which also was missing in recent stories on Governor Christie trying to immunize the hospitals from suits for two years.

Nor has The Record asked Hackensack officials why they aren't filing their own lawsuit after a landmark Tax Court decision last June that stripped Morristown Medical Center of its century old exemption from property taxes (A-4).

The potential tax liability of Englewood Hospital and Medical Center is missing from today's story, but Holy Name Medical Center would have to pay about $2 million a year.

HUMC's potential tax liability is far greater, more than $10 million, Hackensack officials have said.

Auto show

On Wednesday, The Record's business editors went out to lunch, and never returned to the office.

At least that's the impression readers have from today's stale preview of the New York International Auto Show at the Jacob Javits Center (L-7).

"Hyundai will join Toyota in showing off new electric and hybrid vehicles," The Associated Press reports today.

In fact, those cars were introduced on Wednesday, the first of two press days, as the photo and caption clearly indicate.

Old Prius news

And Tom Krisher, a clueless AP reporter, adds, "Toyota will show a plug-in Prius than can run on electricity alone." 

But since the first Prius was imported in 2000, the hybrid's gasoline engine turned off when stopped at lights, when coasting and at other times, allowing the battery and electric motor to power it. 

In another major error, Krisher claims hybrids and electrics appealed to the "environmentally conscious" and "lacked the power and handling of gas-powered rivals" (L-7).

But electrics accelerate far faster than a conventional car, because all of their power is available immediately.

Krisher's story on L-7 carries a New York dateline, but a related piece on L-8 carries a Detroit dateline. 

How was he in two places at the same time? 

Hackensack now free to sue hospital that shifts tax burden

Two views of a home being built on North Woodland Street and Booth Avenue in Englewood, above and below, where city officials gave property owner Nader Bolour a permit to remove 109 trees as long as he plants 273 new trees, The Record reported in December 2014.

Bolour, a native of Iran, is owner of the Doris Leslie Blau Gallery of antique carpets and custom-designed rugs in Manhattan.

Editor's note: Subscribers received an e-mail from The Record that "a production issue" may delay delivery of today's paper. This post is based on a story that appears on the paper's Web site.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Hackensack and other towns "may try to levy property taxes against non-profit hospitals now that Governor Christie has vetoed legislation" that would require them to pay a relatively small community service fee, The Record says.

Hackensack University Medical Center and other non-profits that claim exemption from property taxes shift the burden unfairly onto homeowners and businesses -- a story the Woodland Park daily has ignored for years.

Hackensack's assessor has successfully taxed $139 million in HUMC property, yielding about $4,877,000 a year.

But the main hospital complex, an additional $257 million in property that is tax exempt, would yield more than $10 million in revenue for the city, and likely halt the annual increase on other tax payers.

Under the proposed state law, HUMC would have paid the city $690,762 a year -- essentially chump change.

Christie veto

Christie vetoed a bill proposed after "last summer's Tax Court decision that invalidated the property tax exemption enjoyed by non-profit Morristown Medical Center," Washburn reports.

The hospital's parent company, Atlantic Health System, eventually settled, The Record says, "agreeing to pay $15.5 million to satisfy back taxes and interest, and will make future payments of about $1 million a year as tax on the for-profit part of its operation."

Washburn's story makes no reference to HUMC, the biggest non-profit hospital in North Jersey.

Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck, Ridgewood, Wayne and Paterson now are free to repeat Morristown's successful challenge to the non-profit status of the hospital in their community. 

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).