Christie veto of another minimum-wage hike is a sure thing

In February, Governor Christie's endorsement of wacko racist Donald J. Trump for president prompted seven major New Jersey dailies to call for his resignation. The Record of Woodland Park was the exception. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Editor Deirdre Sykes of The Record continues to sanitize Governor Christie's record, especially when it comes to his 500-plus vetoes -- many aimed at bills helping the middle and working classes.

On Saturday's front page, Staff Writer John C. Ensslin reports Christie has "several more weeks to mull over" three dozen pending bills, including one that would raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.

Of course, Ensslin and Sykes know the fate of this latest proposal will be the same as the hike he killed in 2013, but nowhere in the story do they report that veto.

On the continuation page, Ensslin notes "Democratic lawmakers fully expect Christie will veto ... the bill raising the minimum wage from $8.38 to $10.10 per hour with additional hikes of at least $1 until it reaches $15 by 2021."

If Christie vetoes the bill, the issue won't go on the ballot until November 2017. 

After the GOP bully vetoed the earlier proposal, voters OK'd a hike in the minimum wage in November 2013.

Wasting newsprint

Even hard-core baseball fans think The Record overdid the coverage of Yankee Alex Rodriguez's last game on Friday.

Sykes ran two columns and two news stories about A-Rod on Saturday (Page 1 and the Sports front).

Sports Columnist Tara Sullivan was so desperate for an angle she seized on a thunderstorm during the pre-game ceremonies to declare:

"The human lightning rod getting interrupted by the real thing."

"A-Rod" is a creation of tabloid headline writers who never had the room to write "Rodriguez."

Local news?

Saturday's local-news section was filled with news from Paterson (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

But the local editors must have the missed the exit to Hackensack.

A photo of a man carrying bottled water up the stairs to his Hackensack apartment is all the news city residents got (L-6).

Today's Local section is completely missing Hackensack news.

Transportation writer John Cichowski had to figure out some way to justify a column on traumatic brain injuries from falls so he compares the number of deaths to "being killed on foot in traffic" (Road Warrior on L-1).

Going to pot

Today's front page carries a moving account of veterans who smoke marijuana to find relief from the haunting images of war and death (A-1).

The story by Staff Writer Todd South, himself a veteran, comes two days after the federal government's decision to withhold the approval of marijuana for medical purposes.

Officials said there is no scientific evidence it works. 

Editors don't dare compare daily Cuban life to violent U.S.

Lane restrictions on Main and Anderson streets, above, and Main and Passaic streets in Hackensack on Thursday and Friday had many drivers going in circles.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The biggest laugh line in Mike Kelly's Page 1 column on Cuba today is that many young people are "mired in low-wage jobs and unable to buy homes."

But isn't that exactly what The Record has been reporting for months about fast-food workers in the United States who have been calling for a minimum hourly wage of $15?

Kelly and Editor Martin Gottlieb, who sent the reporter to Havana, don't dare compare daily life on the Caribbean's biggest island to New Jersey and the rest of the United States (A-1).

No gun problem

For one thing, Cubans don't live with the kind of rampant gun violence that has taken so many innocent lives on the streets of Paterson, and in schools, churches and malls across the country.

Cuban youth aren't dying from the heroin overdoses that have become an epidemic in affluent Bergen County.

The 1956 revolution also ended discrimination against black Cubans -- the kind of equality that continues to elude black Americans -- and built schools and clinics in rural areas that had none.

Kelly does mention free universal health care and education in Cuba, but readers won't find a comparison of the two economic systems (A-8).

A Cuban friend standing next to one the beautifully restored American cars that tourists see all over Havana.

Low cost of living

Cuban wages are low, and so is the cost of living.

When I last visited the island in 2004, one of my hosts was paying rent equal to $1.35 a month, and after 30 years he became the owner of the apartment in Central Havana.

A typical monthly water bill in a Havana walk-up was 25 cents. A pound of tomatoes was 5 cents, and the government issued coupons for free food, toilet paper and other commodities.

For Cubans, tickets to the famed National Ballet were 10 cents, and they would often resell them to tourists for $10, the going price at the box office.

In 2006, The Wall Street Journal cited a study that estimated Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces controlled more than 60% of the island's economy -- from owning hotels and restaurants to leasing offshore lots for oil exploration.

In one of my visits, I saw a farmer's market in Havana selling organic vegetables grown by the military.

Greed victory

Also on Page 1 today, the Christie administration handed a victory to Avalon Bay, the real-estate investment trust that used cheap wood construction in an Edgewater apartment complex that burned down in January (A-1).

New building codes taking effect on Monday won't require more sprinklers, including in attic spaces; masonry firewalls between apartments (not buildings, as The Record says), and other improvements sought by residents, firefighters and lawmakers (A-8).

Bergen news?

Four major stories and two briefs from Paterson appear in the Local section delivered to Bergen County readers today (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

Readers looking for important local news on Page 1 were shut out by Gottlieb, who gave a sports columnist free reign to write about baseball.