This must be some sort of record

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A fifth straight day with Hackensack news in The Record of Woodland Park. What gives? Especially after the move to Woodland Park, the editors appeared to have declared dead the city where the newspaper was founded in 1895 and where it prospered for more than 110 years -- while making Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg one of world's richest men.


Thanks to Hackensack's suspended police chief, the city is in the news again today. But is that all there is? How many stories about Ken Zisa are we going to see from Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado? Who, but Alvarado and head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, is interested in so much detail from yet another lawsuit filed against the chief by a police officer?


Isn't there anything else going on in the city worthy of news coverage? When was the last time Alvarado covered a City Council or Board of Education meeting? Has the Record published a photo essay on the city's architectural gems? What about Hackensack as the epicenter of pizza in Bergen County? A taste-off would attract thousands of readers.


The front page is a puzzle. Republican Governor Christie vetoes the Democrats' tax on millionaires -- in a salute to Borg and other wealthy residents -- but most of the page is devoted to the value of homes where murders occurred.


Only three homes are featured. I've always wondered about the resale value of the home on the East Hill of Englewood where a man killed his mother and father with an ax. I guess I'll have to wait for the next time The Record does the story.


The Local section leads with a sensational Passaic County story -- a teenage boy claiming he had sex with his nanny when he was 12. But there is no municipal, education or development news from Teaneck, Englewood or Hackensack.


Maybe if Staff Writer Giovanna Fabiano spent more time in Englewood, where she is assigned, she might wonder why businesses like Panera Bread closed and why there are vacant Palisade Avenue storefronts. Could one landlord be demanding rents many merchants consider just too high to pay?


Today's Better Living contains the bulk of the week's food coverage, including a flawed review of a French restaurant in Edgewater. Food Editor Bill Pitcher says the view from Le Jardin "is the envy of every other restaurant in Bergen County." 


That will come as news to the owners of the stand-alone Japanese restaurant that is part of the Mitsuwa Marketplace complex just down River Road. Even the cheap seats in the food court of the Japanese supermarket have a better view of the Hudson than Le Jardin.


I applaud freelancer Amy Kuperinsky for noting the origin of the beef served at Segovia Steakhouse in Little Ferry (Starters on Page 19 in Better Living). Unfortunately, she isn't aware Certified Angus Beef is raised conventionally and pretty much amounts to a marketing campaign.

Monsy Alvarado's new burden

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For about two years, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado was sidelined to work on the so-called investigation of Michael Mordaga, the well-regarded Hackensack detective who went on to become chief of detectives for the Bergen County prosecutor.

A single story, with the bylines of Alvarado and other staffers, appeared Dec. 16. It not only wasn't good enough for Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park, but the reporters had to resort to guilt by association to get it published at all. Mordaga's name didn't even appear in the lead paragraph and his alleged conflict had ended in February 2007.

Now, it seems, Alvarado has a new burden from the head of the local news assignment desk, Deirdre "Laughs A Lot" Sykes, who somehow kept her job even after pursuing the vendetta against Mordaga for nearly three years, wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff salaries. Sykes' pal, Jean Rimbach, the lead reporter on the Mordaga project, had not had a byline for two years.

Alvarado's new assignment from Sykes, it seems, is covering the lawsuits filed against Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa and the disciplinary hearings of officers who have dared to challenge their boss. In the process, she has ignored  just about all the other news about Hackensack, where the paper was founded in 1895 and where it prospered for more than 110 years. On at least two occasions in the past 18 months, her byline has not appeared for more than a month at a time.

Today, Alvarado reports, an attorney for one of the officers has asked the county prosecutor to investigate Zisa. Alvarado apparently has never asked the mayor or City Council why they haven't suspended Zisa or taken any other action in the many months since the suits were filed, including allegations he used officers to take care of private matters. Maybe bulldog Sykes picked the wrong target for her so-called investigation. Or was Mordaga just another laughing matter? Does Publisher Stephen A. Borg have anything to say about this?


The Zisa story leads Local today, but you'll also find a superficial story on downtown improvement districts by Staff Writer Karen Sudol, who ignores Hackensack altogether, not even reporting the reason the head of that district was fired last June. She also ignores the closing of several restaurants in Englewood's district, including Panera Bread and Cosi.

The front page today is dominated by Teaneck reporter Joseph Ax's long piece under the headline, "Haiti's long road." He spent maybe a week in Haiti in late January and early February, but Local hasn't  had a Teaneck story since Jan. 23. So, it's "Teaneck's long road."

You'll find more reporting exploits in Opinion, where Columnist Jersey Mike Kelly boasts of all the risks he took when he covered 9/11. His many columns since then have been mostly covering his ass.