Christie vows to return country to 'despair and status quo'

The long-awaited, long-delayed repaving of Prospect Avenue in Hackensack -- a street lined with high-rises -- has been completed between Essex and Passaic streets, but other crudely patched blocks between Passaic and Ross Avenue weren't touched. Residents who use NJ Transit buses complained that during the work, a police officer stood by and provided little assistance in helping them cross the street and keep away from heavy equipment and other construction hazards.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers of The Record took one look at another front page from journalism hell -- dominated by Governor Christie, Medicare payments to hospitals and baseball -- and dove into the paper, looking for something relevant to their lives.

If you glance at the headlines and text on Page 1, you'll see that Christie spoke to supporters of his presidential bid and promised to "kick 'hope and change' out" in 2016.

"We're going to bring a little Jersey to the White House," said the GOP bully, who is ninth in a Fox News debate field of 10 clowns on Thursday (A-1).

That's great. Christie would replace "hope and change" with "despair and the status quo," and export the hell he's created in New Jersey to the rest of the country.

And Christie's statement that he has used birth control with his wife is at odds with all of the years he has spent screwing the middle class in New Jersey (A-8).

When did he have the time or the energy to have sex with first lady Mary Pat Christie?

Hackensack news

Jason Nunnermacker, a lawyer who is president of the Board of Education, has announced his second bid for a seat on the Hackensack City Council.

Nunnermacker, an ally of the Zisa family political machine that ran the city for decades, headed a slate that lost the 2013 municipal election.

Now, he's filed a nominating petition for the special Nov. 3 council election to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of Rose Greenman.

Nunnermacker has appeared at council meetings for the last two years to criticize Greenman, Mayor John Labrosse and other city officials.

But he's never discussed why the school budget has continued to increase to the point where it now exceeds the city budget.

Nor has he addressed allegations that a teacher stole two laptops from a school and a supervisor falsified time cards of a subordinate.

As head of the school board, he also has ignored about $58,000 in overbilling by board attorney Richard Salkin in 2014. 

That's over Salkin's contract limit of $95,000 a year.

The Record's Hackensack reporter, Todd South, also is aware of the theft and time-card allegations, but he hasn't bothered to report them.

Local news?

Editors Deidre Sykes and Dan Sforza managed to keep Law & Order filler news to a minimum in today's Local section.

By they did find room for a photo of an SUV that ran into a utility pole in Englewood (L-3).

However, the caption, based on information supplied by the photographer, tells readers nothing about the possible cause.

And here's breaking news:

"An ambulance was observed leaving the area and heading toward Englewood Hospital and Medical Center."

Racial motive?

A story on opposition to a proposal for 24o apartments in Upper Saddle River doesn't explore whether homeowners are trying to keep out black and Hispanic renters (L-9).

The editors frequently portray seniors as confused residents of nursing homes or so addled they mistake the accelerator for the brake pedal, smashing their cars into other people or storefronts.

But on L-1 today, a photo shows an engaged group of seniors picketing a Wayne zoning board meeting in opposition to a proposed 422-unit Avalon Bay apartment complex.

Cheap wood construction was one of the factors cited in the fast-spreading inferno that destroyed the 308-unit Avalon at Edgewater complex on Jan.21.

Healthy eating?

The headlines on the Better Living front promise "simple" and "healthy" recipes for college students (BL-1).

But the recipe on BL-4 calls for two teaspoons plus three tablespoons of artery clogging butter for a pound of flounder fillets.

And Staff Writer Elyse Torbio and the culinary expert she quotes, Jim Edwards of Chef Central in Paramus, don't bother teaching students one of the most valuable lessons of all:

Avoid meat and poultry with antibiotics, growth hormones and other harmful additives.

Meanwhile, clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson advises readers to hold the mayo in a potato salad, but to make sure they include four slices of fatty bacon (BL-2).

N.J., national media ignored Amtrak until 7 people died

Essex Street in Lodi is a repeat destination for students who won't touch the mediocre food served in the Hackensack High School cafeteria. Instead, they find lunch at Chipotle Grill, Wawa and a Smash Burger that looks like it will open soon.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

You've probably never seen Amtrak on the front page of The Record before, even though it is one of the most popular forms of public transit.

But when seven people were killed outside Philadelphia in the crash of an out-of-control Trenton-bound train on Tuesday night, the story led the Woodland Park daily today and Wednesday.

Even Scott Cameron Pelley, anchor of the CBS Evening News, left the comfort of his New York TV studio to report from the scene of the disaster.

Editor Martin Gottlieb thought this was a big story, but not big enough for the entire front page.

So, he dumbed down the coverage with a silly sports column and a Wayne doctor losing his license for "sexual acts" (A-1).

Columnist Tara Sullivan certainly isn't writing for the general reader, with a first paragraph that focuses on "a 1.00 goals against average in win-or-go-home Game 7 situations."

Riveting front-page copy, isn't it?

Coming soon

More North Jerseyans are excited about the opening of a Smash Burger in Lodi than they are about Governor Christie's proposals on foreign policy and military spending (A-5).

On Wednesday, the front-page of The Record reported the wannabe GOP White House candidate unveiled "a five-point economic platform featuring tax cuts for high-income earners." 

But in an apparent change of heart by the editors, the third paragraph of that brief dismissed the plan, noting the 7,000-word speech delivered in New Hampshire "made no mention of his failed attempts to jump-start New Jersey's economy."

That was a reference to rare negativity from Charles Stile, whose Christie column was played inside on Wednesday's A-5, not on Page 1, where readers usually find it. 

Hackensack news

Today's Local section reports former Hackensack Councilwoman Rose Greenman alleges in a lawsuit that Mayor John Labrosse and Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino "made anti-Semitic remarks to her and forced her out of office by creating 'intolerable' working conditions." 

Both Labrosse and Canestrino denied the allegations (L-1).

Wednesday's Local front carried two stories from Hackensack.

Gilda's Club, the nonprofit cancer-support center that closed this month because of financial difficulties, is discussing a partnership with Hackensack University Medical Center.

And HUMC, which has already swallowed its Hackensack neighborhood, still has a big appetite for expansion.

The hospital signed an agreement to merge with Meridian Health, a deal that would create the state's largest hospital network.

More road kill

You know Road Warrior John Cichowski has his priorities screwed up when he warns readers about an annual spring crackdown on seat-belt violations instead of reporting several times a year on how many lives seat belts save (L-1).

Seafood Gourmet

The Better Living cover story on Tuesday -- "FOR THE LOVE OF FISH" -- was a welcome relief from the seemingly endless celebration of the mystery meat served at steakhouses, hamburger chains and hot-dog restaurants.

John Ciravolo, owner of Seafood Gourmet in Maywood, runs the best fish market-restaurant in the metro area.

Boy's school death raises questions, possibility of lawsuit

Snow was falling this morning in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The death of Brendan Jordan, 7, in a New Milford school gymnasium accident probably will result in a lawsuit seeking answers to questions district officials deflected on Thursday.

The Record's Page 1 story and sidebar on how the boy was fatally injured by a falling "108-pound bench" raises a lot of questions the editors failed to answer, but those holes are typical of how the Woodland Park newsroom often bungles breaking news.

A wrongful death lawsuit likely will focus on whether the school district was negligent in properly maintaining "the in-the-wall storage system for ... cafeteria tables," which is shown in a front-page illustration.

But the boy's death raises larger questions on why New Milford and other districts build combination gyms and cafeterias when adding rooms to such schools as Berkley Street Elementary, where the boy was injured.

Did New Milford resort to this economy measure and put children such as Brendan in harm's way after taxpayers rejected a more expensive proposal for a separate gym and cafeteria more than 11 years ago?

There is nothing in The Record's coverage today that even addresses that question.

End home rule

Allowing residents to vote against school projects they fear will raise their taxes is one of the big negatives of home rule.

In fact, a poorly written editorial on A-18 today blasts "New Jersey's home-rule mentality, with its myriad of municipalities with overlapping services [that] drives up the cost of living in this state."

The editorial was listing factors that influenced German luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz to announce the move of its U.S. headquarters to Atlanta from Montvale.

But none of the news stories on Mercedes-Benz in the past few weeks even mentioned home rule's ruinous duplication of services, including nearly 70 police chiefs and 70 school superintendents in Bergen County alone.

Anti-union sentiment

In a letter to the editor today, Igor Shpudejko of Mahwah cites "politicians beholden to ... unions and environmentalists [that] have made the business climate in the state unfriendly" (A-18).

Maybe, Shpudejko can move to Atlanta with Mercedes-Benz.

In another letter, Jay Himelstein, who moved to South Carolina from New Jersey, praises anti-union "right-to-work" states in the South.

I say good riddance to Himelstein and Mercedes, because The Record has exaggerated the significance of the automaker's departure with the loss of up to 1,000 jobs -- a fraction of the 22,000 corporate positions in Montvale, Park Ridge and Woodcliff Lake.

Mercedes is keeping its regional headquarters in Montvale, and plans to open a training center there. 

And as part of the company's marketing effort, the flow of Mercedes-Benzes to VIPs, auto journalists and bloggers to use free for a weekend or week will continue unabated.

Newsroom massacre

The Record and other media claim the Paris newsroom killings are a blow to freedom of speech and an attempt to silence the press.

But the French journalists who were murdered, allegedly by a pair of Algerian brothers, might have exercised more intelligence and kept an eye on history when choosing targets to lampoon.

The publication called Charlie Hebdo has long drawn threats for its depiction of Islam, the official religion in Algeria, and its caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, according to The Record (A-7).

But given the brutal French colonization of Algeria from 1830 to 1962, the journalists should have chosen their targets more carefully.

Hackensack news

A story on the Local front today repeats an error that has appeared in the paper several times, calling Hackensack Board of Education Attorney Richard Salkin a "former city attorney" (L-6).

In the first paragraph of the story, Staff Writer Todd South quotes City Councilwoman Rose Greenman as claiming a zoning complaint against her was an act of "retaliation" by the mayor and deputy mayor (L-1).

But in providing background deep on the continuation page, South makes clear Salkin was the original source of the complaint (L-6).

Confusing, to say the least, and readers wonder whether South, encouraged by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes or her deputy, Dan Sforza, simply manufactured the story as an example of "continuing division on the council" -- a slate of reformers that ended decades of Zisa family rule (L-1).

Cramped trattoria

The small space and the lack of a parking lot probably means Trattoria Carpaccio will go the way of other failed restaurants that occupied a former antiques store on the ground floor of a Grand Avenue apartment building in Englewood (BL-1 and BL-12).

But in listing the restaurant's negatives, Staff Writer Elisa Ung complains, "And instead of a lively bar, Carpaccio customers must bring their own wine."

Why is The Record's restaurant critic bemoaning a BYO policy, the only alternative restaurant goers have to exorbitantly high prices for wine and other alcohol at places with liquor licenses?

I guess Ung is in favor of exploiting customers, if it lines the pockets of wealthy restaurant owners who advertise in The Record.

Readers should question where her loyalties lie, and whether it's time for her to move on.