Another one of Christie's many cronies takes a powder

A little red paint dresses up this building on Hudson Street in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

How many key Christie administration officials once worked for the GOP bully when he was the crime-busting U.S. attorney for New Jersey?

You'd expect The Record to have informed readers long ago about the large number of cronies who got jobs from Governor Christie, but the editors don't sweat the details.

After all, they just got around to tallying the 300-plus vetoes he's used to get his way since he took office more than five years ago and inherited a Democratic-controlled state Legislature.

Sandy aide

Now, Richard Constable is stepping down as Christie's commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs, the agency that is taking all the heat for screwing up the recovery from Superstorm Sandy (A-3). 

Constable is a former federal prosecutor who worked for Christie in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark. 

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes actually wrote Constable worked with Christie [italics added]. 

And the reporter neglected to tell readers how much Constable is paid and how much more he will be making in the private sector. 

I guess that information wasn't in the press release she rewrote.

Constable is one of the many former assistant U.S. attorneys who got jobs from Christie, even though a good prosecutor doesn't necessarily know anything about being a good administrator.

I was shocked to see by the photo on A-3 today that Constable is black, because minorities complained the state's Sandy recovery program discriminated against them.

Fire series flaws

Today's front page carries the last of three parts of "AFTER THE FIRE," focusing on Englewood and Paterson families "coping after disaster" (A-1).

The poorly edited series neglected to emphasize some basics of fire safety, including the importance of smoke detectors, as was evident in the Brooklyn fire that killed seven children early Saturday.

Editor Martin Gottlieb just threw tens of thousands of words and some photos at readers, neglecting to break out some basic fire-safety rules in a graphic or box.

This from a former editor at The New York Times. Sheesh!

Elizabeth Branch

The best story on Page 1 today is by transportation reporter Christopher Maag, who interviewed Elizabeth Branch at a party celebrating her 50th anniversary as a Port Authority toll taker (A-1 and A-6).

Maag answers a natural question: 

How could Branch, of Bergenfield, love a job that forced her to breath in fumes for 50 years?

"The air is fresher," said the queen of the midnight shift.

This Sunday edition is one boring page after another

The directional signals, but not the brake lights, worked on this Sphinx jitney I was stopped behind in Ridgefield on Saturday. During the workweek, the jitneys relieve rush-hour crowding aboard NJ Transit buses heading for Manhattan, one of the stories ignored by The Record's clueless Road Warrior.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's front-page today reports on gambling "competition" between North Jersey and New York State, even though expanding casinos beyond Atlantic City won't happen until 2016, if then. 

The Business front reports on another war between the states, this one over jobs.

Why doesn't Editor Martin Gottlieb revive the New Jersey-New York rivalry at the Port Authority or the war over mall shoppers?

GOP agenda

A Page 1 column dredges up the stale controversy over Benghazi, and the story below that discusses a shake-up in the president's Cabinet (A-1).

Are you bored yet?

A readable story

The most readable story on A-1 is Staff Writer Bill Ervolino's takeout on a "different world" for gay teens.

Ervolino does a far better job on this subject or when he is writing about food. So why doesn't Gottlieb pull the plug on the reporter's Better Living column?

Of course, the story on gay teens is sure to fan speculation in the newsroom about Ervolino's own sexual orientation.

Confusing figures

Almost every road or transportation construction project takes forever, but surely Road Warrior John Cichowski can find something more worthy to write about (L-1).

Also on L-1, a story on the proposed Atlantic Street Park in Hackensack carries the byline of Jennifer Vazquez, a reporter for the weekly Hackensack Chronicle.

The $585,000 cost figure in the text and sub-headline on the front confuse readers, who learn on the continuation page the city is eligible for a county grant that would reduce the price tag to less than $318,000 (L-7).

The Local front story on Woodland Park's centennial is an example of the increased coverage of the Passaic County borough since The Record moved there in 2009.

Celebrity news

Better Living delivers two boring stories:

Staff Writer Elisa Ung's column on "good" extra-virgin olive oils (BL-1) is almost as tedious as her Friday review of Bareli's, a restaurant on Route 3 in Secaucus that requires customers to sit in Lincoln Tunnel traffic for the privilege of paying $55 for a 2-pound lobster.

For that hefty tariff, the restaurant doesn't even remove the meat from the shell and claws. 

The larger element on BL-1 is devoted to an endorsement of an Edgewater bagel store and Starbucks Coffee in Englewood by Daphne Oz, the spoiled daughter of multimillionaire Dr. Mehmet Oz of Cliffside Park.

Paterson mansions

Given the negative coverage of Paterson in the past decade, a Real Estate front story on the city's Eastside mansions is an eye opener (R-1).

The Opinion front is a snoozer, with a second long column on the 9/11 museum by Mike Kelly, and another in the endless string of stories and columns speculating on Governor Christie's political future (O-1).

Sinking feeling

Travel Editor Jill Schensul's cover story on "tempting cruises" ignores the hassles of using Cape Liberty in Bayonne, where departing or arriving passengers face a long, winding, slow-moving traffic jam of vehicles (T-1).

After a recent cruise to Bermuda, one passenger complained she had been waiting 90 minutes for her taxi.

The large, open area next to the ship is unusable, because it is filled with construction debris. 

Passengers are directed to a long, tented shed many hundreds of yards away, requiring them to use shuttle buses to board the ship.