Trick-or-treat edition

Image by notladj via Flickr

Edgewater has great views of the Hudson River, but it is badly polluted as well.

The front page of The Record of Woodland Park today is dominated again by another in a series of contaminated Superfund sites -- sad tales of bureaucratic delays, powerless residents, skyrocketing costs and continuing pollution.


But nowhere in this takeout by Staff Writer Scott Fallon does the paper question its own role in allowing the cleanup to drag on for nearly 30 years. Is it enough for a powerful newspaper -- once every five or 10 years -- to report on how screwed up the federal Superfund program is?

From the photograph on the front of Local today, you'd think a head of state died. A horse-drawn hearse carrying the remains of John Abraham certainly seems unusual for a Teaneck police officer. 

Nearly a week after he died, readers still know nothing about why his Ford-built police car veered violently out of control at a high rate of speed and smashed broadside into a telephone pole across from police headquarters. 

He was a on a double shift, but the paper doesn't know why or ask if he was overworked. Did the Police Interceptor, which has a history of safety problems, fail him? Did he have a heart attack? Fall asleep? Was he even wearing his seat belt? 

Instead of trying to get answers from a number of sources, Staff Writer Joseph Ax is waiting for the next handout from the police chief. 

Why are the funerals of the 3- and 5-year old siblings from Wayne buried on L-7? They were shot to death by their father on Oct. 18 -- a story that was all over Page 1. 


Road Warrior John Cichowski, who has never had to stand up on a rush-hour train or bus into the city, arrogantly says we can live without new train tunnels under the Hudson River. He feels supremely comfortable in the pockets of the automobile dealers who advertise so heavily in the former Hackensack daily.


There is no Hackensack news in this trick-or-treat edition from Editor Francis Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and their lazy minions. Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado is being beaten regularly by by even the crappy weekly papers.


In the edition dated Nov. 1, The County Seat reports Maywood, Rochelle Park and South Hackensack have begun the process of pulling their students out of Hackensack High School.



In Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung promotes the latest book by a former waiter and reports his advice on tipping in many situations -- from food deliverers to valets to skycaps to furniture movers. But nowhere in her Sunday column does she provide his guidance on how much to tip in a restaurant. Your guess is as good as mine on whether 15 percent still is the standard -- or is it 20 percent?


I've blasted Columnist Mike Kelly on numerous occasions, but today on the Opinion front he forcefully delivers his opinion on the pay-to-play stench remaining after the puzzling acquittal of Ridgefield Mayor Anthony R. Suarez. Now, if he'll just take another photo to replace the shit-eating grin that runs with his column.

Christie aggravates state fiscal woes

Image via Wikipedia

Penn Station on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan in 2005.

Image via Wikipedia

Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels under the Hudson River in the 1910s.

All this talk from Governor Christie about saving taxpayers money is costing us a fortune. Now, New Jersey may have to repay $350 million dollars in federal aid that has been spent on the Hudson River rail tunnel project he aborted.

That's on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars that state won't see, because Christie refuses to hit the Borgs and his wealthy friends and supporters with a millionaire's tax. 

And then there are even more millions the state won't get, because he doesn't want to add a few cents to the low gasoline tax -- a hike that would fall disproportionately on the wealthy, who insist on driving their gas-guzzling luxury cars and SUVs. They wouldn't be caught dead on a train into the city.

Did I mention the $400 million in federal education aid Christie blew?


When a Republican fiscal conservative like Christie says "we can't afford" to build the Hudson River tunnels or another project or program, it's code for how he and his wealthy supporters want to keep more money in their own pockets. 

And why is today's story on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park the first time we've heard about a possible partnership with Amtrak on a new rail tunnel to Penn Station in Manhattan?


Today's paper has three stories on the tunnel, the governor's political ambitions and the state debt, and another three on the acquittal of Ridgefield Mayor Anthony R. Suarez -- for a hard news front page you don't see that often anymore.

But maybe Editor Francis Scandale can explain why there is nothing here on how the governor's policies seem to be targeting the middle and working classes, while allowing the rich to get richer and the state to get poorer. 

Nor is there any reporting on jury nullification -- where a panel ignores substantial evidence of a defendant's guilt, because the defense attorney put the government's chief witness on trial.

Get a load of the A-21 Op-Ed piece by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach of Englewood -- a publicity monger who claims President Obama has "shamelessly overexposed himself." It's Boteach who should be ashamed of himself and so should the paper, which plays into his hands time and again.

The rabbi knowingly bought an East Hill mansion next door to the one owned by the Libyan Embassy -- then parlayed that into at least five stories in August 2009 when he protested preparations for a visit by the Libyan leader. Those stories ran during a 33-day period when not a single story about Hackensack appeared in the paper.

Later, Staff Writer Jim Beckerman  wrote a long, flattering story for Better Living, publicizing Boteach's new book on visits to his home by Michael Jackson.

When head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes has to blow up a photo of a New York Giant getting a flu shot and run it on the front of Local, as she does today, readers are in trouble. 

You won't find any Hackensack or Englewood news inside, or anything from many other major towns, either.

Local news reporters in a horse race?

Image by papayatreelimited via Flickr

The first Chilean miner rescued on Tuesday.

I never thought it possible, but since mid-July, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado appears to be filing more stories from her beat than the reporters who cover Teaneck and Englewood for The Record of Woodland Park. The three Bergen communities are among the county's most populous and they are certainly the most diverse.


But under the lackadaisical leadership of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her clueless assistants in the past two and half years, coverage of all three has suffered greatly as the local reporters are sidetracked on investigations or, in the case of the Teaneck reporter, sent to cover the earthquake in Haiti.

Even if Alvarado is leading Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano and Teaneck reporter Joseph Ax, the Hackensack reporter has little to be proud of as she has virtually ignored city affairs while pursuing stories about the Police Department and suspended Chief Ken Zisa. 

Today, she doesn't have a story in the paper. And sometimes she just catches up to coverage in the weeklies. This is the legacy of Sykes' F.U. attitude toward Hackensack since the paper moved out of the city where it was founded.

And Sykes' and Alvarado's hands have been forced, as in the case of the parking garage collapse on Prospect Avenue in Hackensack, a national story they couldn't ignore, but one they never really did justice to.


Between July 15 and Tuesday -- about three months or 90 days -- there have been 41 stories about Hackensack, not counting police and fire news. 

In that time, nine stories were published about Englewood, where Malcolm A. Borg raised the two spoiled brats who have allowed Sykes to run amok in the newsroom. Sixteen Teaneck stories have appeared since July 15.

Who's the patsy?

The federal trial of Ridgefield Mayor Anthony R. Suarez is back on Page 1 today. He took the stand in his own defense, but no one has asked him why he met with a developer and a go-between in Patsy's Restaurant in Fairview -- and not in town hall.

Shafting the reader

Can the news copy desk make the rescue of the Chilean miners any duller? Today's A-1 head: "'An inspiration.'" Wednesday's A-1 head: "Miners being lifted toward freedom." Katie Couric said it all and a lot better on CBS News, paraphrasing now, A miracle unfolds before our eyes.


See earlier post, Telling like it is?