Two Hackensack candidates play trick or treat with voters

HALLOWEEN IN HACKENSACK: On Saturday, the traditional celebration of Halloween on Clinton Place was more subdued, with far fewer decorated homes between Prospect and Summit avenues than in the past.

"Rest in pieces" is a humorous play on words. Although fewer homes were decorated on Saturday, there was no shortage of trick-or-treaters on the streets of the city's Fairmount section.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Call them the two Jasons.

Jason S. Nunnermacker and Jason W. Some are two of the four candidates in Tuesday's election for an unexpired term on the Hackensack City Council.

Here is a report on the two Jasons that you didn't see in The Record of Woodland Park.

They resemble each other, and I'm not talking about their double chins.

The real story is that neither has discussed in any meaningful detail the powerful special interests they represent.

Board czar

Nunnermacker, an attorney, is the president of the city's free-spending Board of Education, which this year approved an irresponsible $106.88 million budget -- bigger than the city's own.

In the May 2013 council election, Nunnermacker was one of the hand-picked candidates of the city's bare-knuckle Democratic Party machine, the power behind the Zisa family political dynasty that ruled for decades and brought the city to its knees.

After Nunnermacker and his running mates were defeated in his first bid for the council, he has attended nearly every meeting.

But he and other board members have never spoken about education. 

Instead, he's helped wage a partisan war against the slate of mostly Republican reformers, including Rose Greenman, who resigned, creating the vacancy he is now seeking to fill.

On June 9, school board President Jason S. Nunnermacker, above, along with fellow board members and the board's attorney, photos below, continued to launch more bitter partisan attacks against the City Council. None of the council critics every spoke about education or the city's schools.

School board member Daniel Carola.

School board members Joseph Barreto, left, and Fancis W. Albolino.

The $95,000-a-year school board attorney, Richard Salkin, conferring with Lynne Hurwitz, back to camera, the Demoratic Party power broker in Hackensack. Salkin lost a second city job as municipal prosecutor after council reformers were elected.

Jason W. Some

Some was 25 when he was appointed in April to fill the seat left vacant by Greenman, who resigned and filed a lawsuit, claiming council members discriminated against her.

Some is sales director of the family owned Some's Uniforms on Main Street, but he also is a member of the Main Street Business Alliance, a powerful group of business owners and real estate companies who have lobbied hard for the city's redevelopment.

Some and other members of the alliance who own downtown property are expected to profit directly from redevelopment or see their property values go up from the construction of retail and residential projects downtown.

Some, who is backed by the current council, and Nunnermacker haven't publicly identified their campaign donors.

Other candidates

The other two candidates for council on Tuesday are:

• Richard L. Cerbo, a homeowner whose father won election as mayor in 1981, defeating Frank Zisa.
• Deborah Keeling-Geddis, a teacher's assistant in the city school system and the only African-American in the race, who was endorsed by the city's education union.

Tax equity

Cerbo has attacked the dramatic property tax inequity in Hackensack, and criticized the 25- and 30-year tax abatements the council has promised apartment developers. 

He's said he'd like to see Hackensack University Medical Center, Bergen County, colleges and others who own hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-exempt property give back more to the city.

That would help ease the burden on home and business owners, who now pay a disproportionate share of  property taxes.

Cerbo also feels that 10-year tax abatements would have been sufficient to lure developers to Hackensack --  in what is the city's second apartment-building boom after the one on Prospect Avenue.

He also is disappointed the mayor and council didn't negotiate agreements with developers to give a good percentage of construction and other jobs to Hackensack residents.

Cerbo is the only candidate on Tuesday who represents long-suffering homeowners who see higher tax bills every year, and the only one without an ax to grind.

Today's paper

Nine days after Suzanne Bardzell was murdered in the driveway of her Midland Park home, allegedly by her ex-cop boyfriend, The Record's lazy, incompetent editors finally got off of their asses.

Editor Martin Gottlieb and local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza assigned two reporters to explore on Page 1 today the central question surrounding her death:

Whether local police, courts and other agencies could have done a better job of protecting Bardzell, 48, the single mother of two teenage boys who is being called a victim of domestic violence.

Staff Writers Abbott Koloff and Monsy Alvarado do a masterful job of pussy footing: No criticism is leveled, no blame assigned.

The editorial page likewise is silent on the case.

The story notes Bardzell was fatally stabbed on Oct. 22 "after a tumultuous 17 days that began when the suspect broke into her home" and threatened to kill her with a pair of scissors.

Local news?

On the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to report on transportation one highway sign at a time (L-1).

Nearly an entire page is devoted to listing the names of all of the local and county candidates in Tuesday's election (L-3).

Saturday's paper

On a front page dominated by baseball, the editors found room for a well-crafted story on the history of Hackenack's Oritani Field Club by Staff Writer Todd South.

The Camden Street landmark closed today after 128 years, to be replaced by as many as 280 apartments opposite a Toyota dealer on River Street.

South did a great job capturing the importance of the club as a place for social gatherings, as well as a showcase for sports and Hollywood celebrities. 

However, some Hackensack readers had hoped he would have done a better job of reporting on the special interests backing Nunnermacker and Some in Tuesday's council election.

Son of ex-Hackensack Mayor Cerbo is running for council

Richard Cerbo urging the Hackensack City Council on Tuesday night to persuade Bergen County and Hackensack University Medical Center to contribute more to the city in view of their tax-exempt status. Cerbo is seeking a seat on the council in a special Nov. 3 election.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Richard Cerbo, son of former Hackensack Mayor Fred Cerbo, says he has filed a nominating petition to run in a special Nov. 3 election for a vacant seat on the City Council.

Fred Cerbo served on the City Council before he was elected Hackensack's mayor in 1981.

The lifelong city resident died in 2012 at the age of 87, according to a North Jersey.com obituary that you can read by clicking on the following link:

'He cared about the town'

'Tax-free buildings'

At Tuesday night's City Council meeting, Richard Cerbo, 63, noted there are "tax-free buildings everywhere" in Hackensack, including the county jail and courthouse, and the unemployment office.

Those agencies and services -- as well as the non-profit Hackensack University Medical Center -- draw thousands of residents from other towns to the city, Cerbo said.

For that reason, he urged city officials to try and persuade the county and hospital to contribute more to Hackensack.

Special election

The Nov. 3 election will fill a seat left vacant by the resignation of Councilwoman Rose Greenman.

The seat has been filled temporarily since April by an appointee, Jason Some, owner of Some's Uniforms on Main Street.

Greenman was severely criticized by Board of Education President Jason Nunnermacker, board Attorney Richard Salkin and other allies of the Zisa family political dynasty that ran Hackensack for decades.

Nunnermacker, an attorney, was one of the Zisa-backed candidates who ran unsuccessfully for council in 2013, losing to a reform slate that included Greenman.

Now, Nunnermacker has declared his candidacy in the Nov. 3 special election to fill her seat.

THE SUITS: Hackensack Board of Education President Jason Nunnermacker, right; board members Joseph Barreto and Timothy J. Hoffman, on aisle; and smiling board Attorney Richard Salkin took up positions in the back of City Council Chambers. Only Salkin and Barreto spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting.

Board Attorney Richard Salkin addressing Mayor John Labrosse, City Council members and City Manager David R. Troast, left, on Tuesday night. 

School board

Nunnermacker, two other board members and board Attorney Richard Salkin attended Tuesday night's council meeting after conducting their own meeting.

It's not clear why the school board holds meetings on the same night as the council, unless it is intended to deny most residents a say in how the city's schools are run.

Residents are allowed only 3 minutes to comment, in contrast to the 5 minutes Salkin and others are given at council meetings.

To make matters worse, I cannot recall The Record covering a school board meeting in Hackensack in a year or more.

Board members count on apathy from residents as well as The Record's editors, as they did this year, when fewer than 1,000 of the city's 20,000 registered voters cast ballots and approved a $107 million budget, exceeding the city's own spending plan.

Todd South, the reporter assigned to cover Hackensack, was at Tuesday night's council meeting, but nothing about the meeting appears in the paper today.

Music in park

Hackensack City Manager David R. Troast announced three lunchtime concerts in the new Atlantic Street park on Friday, and Sept. 11 and 18.

Troast said a few downtown restaurants will take lunch orders and deliver them to the new park.

Today's paper

The Hackensack news drought apparently mirrors fear of a severe water shortage in North Jersey, where the primary supplier is asking residents "to voluntarily conserve," according to The Record (L-1).

What little news there is from Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza in today's Local section includes reports on Paterson gangs, sexual assault of a college student and lots of other crime and accident news (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

In Bergenfield, Bergen County's first female police chief was sworn in, and will be paid more than Governor Christie (L-1).

Page 1 news?

On the front page today, Editor Martin Gottlieb runs a sensational report on the arrest of Dr. Raja Jagtiani of Dumont.

The doctor was charged with criminal sexual contact and other counts for allegedly touching a patient and three employees inappropriately at his Bergenfield practice, and biting one of them on the cheek (A-1).

Page 1 is dominated by two stories on the pope's downplaying "the sin of abortion," but nowhere in the two long narratives do reporters mention the hard-line views of Republicans seeking their party's presidential nomination, including Christie.

Local weather: Now you see it, now you don't

A Toyota SUV and a Toyota sedan collided on Tuesday afternoon at Euclid Avenue and Linden Street in Hackensack, above and below, at an intersection where drivers often run stop signs.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The record-setting, bone-chilling plunge in temperatures was front-page news on Tuesday, but today, editors of The Record try to hide the local-assignment desk's lackluster coverage.

The lazy assignment editors in the Woodland Park newsroom apparently instructed reporters to stay inside and try to cover the story by telephone (L-1 and L-2).

Cold shoulder

That must why there isn't a single interview with a commuter, such as the dozen people shivering as they waited in line on Tuesday morning on Prospect Avenue in Hackensack for an express bus to Manhattan.

Or a photo of Verizon repairman raising a low-hanging wire outside a home on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack or working outside anywhere else in North Jersey.

Instead, Editor Marty Gottlieb's front page today delivers an astounding three stories on national, state and Bergen County politics (A-1).

At 8:30 on Tuesday morning, the outside temperature in Hackensack and Paramus was a bracing 5 degrees.

More Christie spin

Gottlieb continues to give Page 1 play to Governor Christie's latest B.S., portraying his GOP bullying as "bipartisan compromise."

The story by Staff Writer Patricia Alex, who covers higher education for The Record, isn't much different than past accounts, starting in 2010, that regurgitated Christie's fictional "Reform Agenda," "Jersey Comeback" and "Stronger Than the Storm."

Those political marketing campaigns were designed to hide Christie's war on the middle class, as does the current one, which ignores all of the vetoes he has used to stymie the majority Democrats in the state Legislature.

Perspective

A letter to the editor from Richard Cerbo of Hackensack serves as a counterpoint to a recent story on the city's plan to encourage apartment development downtown in a bid to revive Main Street (A-10).

Cerbo, son of a former mayor, notes "builders, developers, investors and commercial property barons" will benefit most of all.

"That's how business is done, but not once in the story was there any mention  of helping those left out, including the homeless, the unemployed, the elderly and the sick," Cerbo said.

He noted Hackensack already has "an urban feel" and that more development would add more traffic and quicken "the deterioration of the city's quality of life."

Relief for whom?

In a related story, the Hackensack City Council on Tuesday night unveiled a measure offering tax relief to developers and others "who build or make improvements in the 39-block Upper Main Street Rehabilitation Area" (L-1).

The proposal appears designed to benefit members of a public-private partnership called the Upper Main Street Business Alliance who own or have purchased much of the property in the development district, and hope to cash in by selling it to developers.

Hackensack can ill afford to grant tax relief in a city where Hackensack University Medical Center, Bergen County and Fairleigh Dickinson University already own hundreds of millions of dollars in property that pays no property taxes, shifting the burden to homeowners and small businesses.

The Record also reported the hiring of Deborah Karlsson as Hackensack's new city clerk (Tuesday's L-2).

Sky is falling

On the Local front today, the befuddled John Cichowski, in his guise as the Road Warrior, compares the Christie-inspired George Washington Bridge traffic jams in September to:

The 1966 New York City transit strike, the 1969 snowstorm that paralyzed the five boroughs, a Chicago blizzard in 1979 and a Denver snowstorm in 1983 (L-1).

Smoking gun

Today, the Web sites of The New York Times and The Record are reporting the papers obtained e-mails showing that Christie's office was "closely involved," as The Times describes it, in GWB lane closures that caused traffic jams in Fort Lee, where the mayor is a Democrat.

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Bridget Anne Kelly said in an e-mail to David Wildstein, a close friend of Christie's who had been appointed to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Kelly, a deputy chief of staff to Christie, gave the go-ahead for the lane closures about two weeks before they occurred, The Times reported.

Trial by fire

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza -- in an apparent bid to deflect attention from readers' disappointment in local-news coverage -- managed to find a journalist with a real image problem: 

Former Fox 5 reporter Charles Leaf is on trial at the Bergen County Courthouse on charges he sexually abused a 4-year-old girl at his Wyckoff home three years ago (L-3).

Transit column?

Every major newspaper in New York has carried a subway column, but The Record has acted contemptuously toward NJ Transit bus and rail commuters.

In the past decade, the Road Warrior column has been devoted almost exclusively to drivers, and Staff Writer Karen Rouse, another transportation reporter, has never bothered to ride the buses and trains and report on the quality of service.

On Monday's L-3, Rouse reported on the progress of a turnpike widening project between Exits 6 and 9 -- about a hour's drive from Bergen County.