Editors are covering crime news by watching Twitter

In Hackensack, first-quarter property taxes are due on Tuesday, and the city provides a drop box under a window in police headquarters.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Page 1 and just about every other page of The Record screams, "No news today."

The Closter murder-suicide is back on the front page, even though the only new element is that autopsies determined who killed whom on Friday night (A-1).

And Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli shared the information on Twitter, according to the second paragraph.

Five staffers worked on the story of Michael A. Tabacchi, 27, who strangled and stabbed his wife, Iran Pars Tabacchi, 41, before fatally stabbing himself in the chest.

The Sunday staff couldn't do much better than repeating information from the story on Sunday's front page, and interviewing neighbors, reporting this gem from a man who lived across the street:

"They always walked their dog up and down the street and would say hi" (A-7).

The reporters were so desperate for something new, one contributed this:

"On Sunday, the area around the ... home was sleepy and quiet, with no evidence of the violence that had occurred just two days before" (A-7).

What did this reporter expect, blood staining the snow or one of the toys belonging to the 15-month-old boy the couple adored and who was found unharmed?

Road litter

Also on Page 1 today is another Road Warrior column about people who live feet away from the roar of traffic on Route 17 in Waldwick.

The first paragraph noted Allyson Cobin "hung a sign on her lawn warning speeders to "Slow Down, Drive Safe, Value Life."

Then, Staff Writer John Cichowski has breaking news for readers:  A car "skidded off the highway, broke through the sign and smashed through her picket fence" late last month (A-1).

Nowhere does Cichowski explain why anyone in their right mind would buy a house next to the noisy highway or continue to live there year after year.

Well-meaning Waldwick residents made to look like fools

A Hackensack resident waiting for NJ Transit's 165 local to Westwood at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan today stretches out on the palatial seating provided. Full metal benches with seat backs and arm rests are provided only at the 300 gates, which are used after 10 p.m.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On Page 1 of The Record today, thousands of words from the befuddled Road Warrior amount to little more than an elaborate "Never mind."

Why did Staff Writer John Cichowski waste readers' time, even after police told him a suggestion from a resident to safeguard a radar officer was impractical and that any tickets given wouldn't stand up in court (A-1)? 

On the Local front, the obituary for Miriam Burgess, onetime editor of The Record's lifestyle pages, carefully avoids comparing her to some of the turkeys who succeeded her and ran what is now called the Better Living section (L-1).

And in a refreshing change, the dessert- and meat-obsessed Elisa Ung enthuses about a salad in the very first sentence of her rave review of Mezza in Westwood (BL-16).

Meanwhile, today's edition of the weekly Hackensack Chronicle -- delivered with The Record -- carries two stories from the July 21 meeting of the City Council the Woodland Park daily didn't bother covering or reporting.

Speed cameras

The A-1 and A-8 headlines on today's Road Warrior collumn are Cichowski's lame attempt to ignore the safety of speed cameras, which would make radar checkpoints and police chases obsolete.

The headlines are merely intended to fool gullible readers into plowing through the silly column on an impractical suggestion by Lisa Sheriff that police radar cars park in her driveway to catch speeders on Route 17 in Waldwick.

Waldwick Police Officer Christopher Goodell was killed on July 17 when his radar-equipped cruiser, parked on the shoulder of Route 17, was hit by a tractor trailer whose driver didn't try to stop.

Goodell's family is getting a consolation prize, a bill to create the Christopher Goodell Memorial Highway along Route 17 in Waldwick (L-3). 

As noisy as ever

The noise from landscapers' leaf blowers is unabated, despite The Record's claim that "police are teaming up across county lines to solve a rash of landscaping-equipment thefts" (L-1).

This major crime story follows another expose this week about the theft of nine luxury vehicles in Paramus since January.

Hackensack news

For the "latest" Hackensack news, see today's edition of the Hackensack Chronicle.

The City Council on July 21 introduced an $8.6 million bond ordinance to cover tax appeal refunds, some dating to 2005, the last year Jack Zisa served as mayor.

On Page 3, the weekly reports on a July 21 presentation by Brian Nelson, the city's redevelopment attorney, on "long-term tax abatement agreements, also known as Payments in Lieu of Taxes."

Unfortunately, the story is incomprehensible.

The NJ Transit 165 Turnpike Express I boarded in Hackensack at 10:33 this morning encountered no traffic on Route 495 and no wait at the tollbooth, above. I arrived at the midtown Manhattan bus terminal at 11:10 a.m.

Night and day

I took NJ Transit's 165 Turnpike Express into Manhattan today to have lunch, and the trip was far smoother than Wednesday afternoon's nightmare.

See:

I take an NJ Transit bus from hell into Manhattan gridlock