Editors to blame for the voter apathy they are bemoaning

HOMEOWNER, NOT POLITICIAN: Richard L. Cerbo is the only sensible choice in Tuesday's special Hackensack City Council election, if you are interested in electing someone whose main goal is to reverse rising property taxes and give city residents jobs on downtown renewal projects. An unexpired term is at stake.

The sample ballot mailed to Hackensack residents shows a horizontal column of candidates, as opposed to the usual vertical one. Cerbo's name appears first, in "Column 1."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record and other news media do a terrible job of covering elections.

At the Woodland Park daily, the bored, burned-out editors -- who have been pounding keyboards for decades -- actually reduced coverage of local elections, especially those for school board members and budget approvals.

Much of the other election coverage focuses on boring politics, fund-raising and spending by special interest groups -- but hardly ever on issues and what is good for a town, the state or the country.

Today, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin has the balls to lecture readers on the importance of voting, even in an off-year election like the one on Tuesday.

Voter apathy

An editorial, "Voting matters," says, "... The truth is that all elections are important, from town council to freeholder to the State House" (A-11).

"Tuesday is the time to show your representatives how you feel. It's also an opportunity to maintain control of your community."

Yet, the editorial doesn't mention the special election to fill a City Council seat in Hackensack, the most populous community in Bergen County.

Voter apathy is high in a city once derided as "Zisaville" after decades of rule by a single family.

School spending

Although Hackensack boasts about 20,000 registered voters, fewer than 1,000 of them voted in April's school board election, and this year, they approved an irresponsible $106.88 million budget, one that exceeds the council's own.

Hackensack spends more per pupil than Ridgewood, where schools are considered far superior.

Despite this, school board President Jason S. Nunnermacker has the chutzpah to run as a fiscal conservative in his second bid for a council seat, while hardly mentioning his affiliation with the schools.

Another candidate, Jason S. Some of Some's Uniforms on Main Street is only 25, yet he was appointed in April to the council seat that is now up for grabs on Tuesday.

Young Some is backed by powerful forces, including the Main Street Business Alliance, business and property owners pushing the city's ambitious downtown rehabilitation plan.

I received two comments in reaction to Sunday's post on the special interests behind Nunnermacker and Some:

peanutNovember 2, 2015 at 10:53 AM

Very sketchy on your facts Victor. Some & Geddis are both backed by Zisas, Geddis is NOT backed by union. Current political climate is strange bedfellows - current council & a Zisa both back Some. Nunnermacker is not backed by a Zisa but by quite a few of former "reformer" supporters. A council meeting is not the place for BOE issues, although you keep bringing the subject up there. Go to a BOE meeting to discuss education. Check NJ ELEC for donor reports.

Steven GelberNovember 1, 2015 at 10:26 PM

Gaddis received no such endorsement.... In fact the union President said so.... http://hackensackscoop.blogspot.com/2015/10/council-candidate-receives-endorsement.html

It is unfortunate that you can take to a keyboard with how off base you are with the actual political climate in this town. You do know that there are 2 Zisa candidates? That the Zisa's themselves are divided? That Nunnermacker is fractured from both Zisa factions? Or was the relevance of "double chins" as far as you got into the issues? 

If true, Hackensack really is in deep doo-doo with more political factions muddying the waters than before.

Hackensack news

The Record's Local section today leads with a story on a new executive director at the Main Street Business Alliance, which despite the name doesn't represent the entire street.

Patrice Foresman of Ridgewood is being paid $75,000 a year by a group that only reluctantly contributed money to the Atlantic Street Park, a downtown amenity for which the alliance lobbied hard (L-1).

Her last position was at Community Blood Services in Montvale, which might be relevant in view of how Hackensack taxpayers have been bled mercilessly by litigation against onetime Police Chief Ken Zisa, who also was a Democratic state assemblyman.

Redevelopment

Today's story by Todd South notes:

"The group has been the driving force and partners with the city administration in promoting redevelopment," which would add thousands of new residents in downtown apartments (L-1).

"Those new residents, business owners hope, will bring new retail and restaurant options to the city's rehabilitation zone, which ... spreads outward to include State and River streets" [and 19.7 acres owned by the Borg family's North Jersey Media Group, publishers of The Record].

"The total number of residential units among the five projects already approved for redevelopment is 1,880," including up 700 on the old Record property (L-2). 

Holes in story

There is much missing from South's story.

For one thing, the strategy of building many hundreds of apartments to revive a downtown has already failed miserably in Englewood.

For another, South and previous Hackensack reporters have shirked their responsibility to identify the members of the Main Street Business Alliance who are profiting from redevelopment.

Finally, South doesn't address statements by Richard L. Cerbo, a homeowner seeking the City Council seat in Tuesday's election, that Hackensack could have attracted developers with 10-year tax abatements, instead of those lasting 25 and 30 years.

Cerbo also has criticized the council for not getting guarantees from developers to provide a good percentage of construction and other jobs for city residents.

In Hackensack, a onetime loyalist turns vicious

Hackensack police officers, who are working without a contract, packed the back rows of Monday night's City Council work session. Christopher Maag, front, introduced himself to audience members as The Record's new Hackensack reporter, replacing Hannan Adely. Behind Maag is Steven V. Gelber, who writes the Hackensack Scoop.com blog.

Editor's note: This post has been updated and expanded.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Steven V. Gelber worked tirelessly for the Citizens for Change slate in last May's Hackensack municipal election, and was most visible after the polls closed, quickly counting the votes that confirmed the reformers' victory.

But in recent months, Gelber has turned against members of the new City Council, accusing them of the same kind of cronyism and abuse of power that marked three decades of rule by the Zisa family and their defeated council allies.

At Monday night's council work session, Gelber, who writes the Hackensack Scoop.com blog, spoke passionately against making acting City Manager Anthony Rottino permanent.

Rottino was a key member of the Citizens for Change campaign, providing advice and introductions to donors.

No experience?

But Gelber said Rottino had no municipal-management experience and even listed several monetary "judgments" against the official, who also is the city's economic development director with a total salary of $176,000 plus benefits.

The controversy is played out today on The Record's Local front, where Staff Writer Christopher Maag reports a majority of council members are engaged in "a power struggle" with the mayor and deputy mayor "for control of city government."

Maag incorrectly calls Citizens for Change the "Team for Change."

Three against two

Maag says three council members -- Leo Battiglia, David Sims and Rose Greenman -- may try to vote at tonight's public meeting to make Rottino permanent, against the wishes of Mayor John Labrosse and Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino.

Labrosse and Canestrino recently stopped using Thom Ammirato, their former campaign manager and now the city's chief spokesman, to write their press releases, but Ammirato held on to his full $78,000 salary.

Labrosse said when Ammirato was given a one-year city contract, he didn't tell the mayor he had a full-time job with Bergen County and other side jobs providing public relations to Republican officials, as revealed in Gelber's blog.

Gelber faulted the City Council for not launching a statewide or nationwide search for a city manager.

He ended his comments by telling council members, "Get rid of your cronies!"

On Monday night, the City Council heard a presentation on a proposed Atlantic Street Park downtown, near the city's Cultural Arts Center and a 222-unit apartment building, both still under construction.

Park-grant deadline

Maag's story today didn't mention the Atlantic Street Park, a proposal that is almost as controversial as Hackensack's next city manager.

The park, with a performance space, would cost $585,000 and the city would get a $268,000 county grant, but only if it is built by October.

Officials of the Upper Main Alliance, a public-private partnership pushing the redevelopment of Main Street, spoke in favor of the park.

But during the public-comment period, residents questioned the need to build the park.

One women said the money would be better spent on a community center and municipal pool. One man said the city should fix potholes instead.

Far from shocking

Is there anything else worth reading in the Woodland Park daily?

Page 1 carries the second part of Staff Writer Jean Rimbach's densely written opus on the state Board of Public Utilities.

Rimbach fulminates about "a revolving door that often takes government officials into employment in the industries they helped regulate" (A-1).

Is that so shocking?

In skimming the text on the continuation page (A-6), I couldn't find any discussion of whether this impropriety affected the setting of electric and gas rates or anything else affecting consumers.

In fact, the real failure of the BPU is in not levying huge fines on Public Service Electric & Gas Co. and other monopolies for the slow repair response to Irene, Sandy and other big storms.

Ignoring real failure

Leave it to transportation reporter Karen Rouse to write a story about NJ Transit employees who used agency vehicles for personal reasons (A-1).

She continues to ignore another issue that affects thousands of commuters every workday: 

The inability of the state agency to provide enough seats on buses and trains into the city.

Another GOP buffoon

On A-3, Staff Writer Patricia Alex reports former Republican Gov. Thomas H. Kean will replace Condoleeza Rice as the commencement speaker at Rutgers University.

There is nothing in the story about whether Kean will finally fess up to hiding huge deficits from James Florio, his Democratic successor, who was forced to raise taxes, leading to his defeat when he ran for a second term. 

Doughnut hole

A second story on the Local front speaks volumes about the high cost of home rule and Bergen County's nearly 70 police chiefs (L-1).

Frank Papapietro, New Milford's police chief and go-to guy for doughnuts, is slated to be paid more than $300,000 this year, including nearly $110,000 in one-time payouts for vacation and accumulated sick days.

The Record has never examined why Governor Christie placed a ceiling on the salaries of school superintendents, but did nothing to control the exorbitant pay and benefits of police chiefs.

Hackensack defends developer's 30-year tax break

Hackensack resident Steven V. Gelber questioning Councilman John Labrosse, second from right, on Tuesday night about his three health-insurance policies, including coverage by the city and Hackensack University Medical Center, where Labrosse works in plant operations. Labrosse, the only incumbent running for a new term, declined to answer during the public session. The Record covered the meeting, but didn't report any comments from Gelber or other residents.

At the Nellie K. Parker Elementary School in Hackensack on Tuesday, blogger Victor E. Sasson approached two teachers or teacher's aides during recess, and asked them to sign his petition of nomination for the City Council election on May 14. Although they had been talking to each other, they said they couldn't sign the petition because they had to keep their "eyes" on the children. Later, a short, balding man with a white mustache came out and said he couldn't sign a petition on "city time," and that Sasson would have to stand across the street from the school, if he wanted to solicit signatures.

The Record's upbeat story on a 222-unit apartment building planned for State Street in Hackensack doesn't report residents' objections to a proposed 30-year tax break for the wealthy developer, Capodagli Property Co. of Pequannock (L-3).

At a City Council meeting on Tuesday night, officials introduced an ordinance allowing the developer to pay $1,200 in property taxes per unit for the first 7 years or a total of $266,400 a year.

Based on a partial assessment of a 226-unit apartment complex that is nearing completion on Hackensack Avenue, between two shopping centers, the State Street building would be paying only about a third of full property taxes, a city official said today.

Downtown spark?

City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono and council members defended the giveaway as necessary to develop the "blighted" State Street property, which, they said, is now yielding less than $80,000 a year in property  taxes.

They said the building, which will be called Meridia State and have only 141 parking spaces, will spark the renewal of Main Street, which is a block away. 

But the building won't be completed until January 2015. 

Young professionals

The Hackensack Avenue complex will be marketed as a perfect place for shopaholics to live. 

Let's hope for the sake of Main Street merchants the "affordable luxury" building on State Street isn't aimed at young professionals who have maxed out their credit cards.

The hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in taxes that won't be collected means Hackensack residents will have to wait longer to see their neglected streets paved, and can give up hope of ever seeing their own property tax bills stabilize.

Across America, large and small cities are making their downtowns more liveable in the hopes of attracting empty nesters and seniors, but Hackensack appears to be focusing on young professionals to bring about a renaissance.

Today's paper

If you expected to see local news on the front page today, you can forget about it. 

Editor Marty Gottlieb has got bigger fish to fry than Hackensack's future.

Errors, not corrections

On the front of Local, Road Warrior John Cichowski presents another column filled with numbers -- this one based on a report from the U.S. Census Burea -- and quotes from commuters he undoubtedly interviewed by telephone.

The problem is that the tired Cichowski has shown a propensity to misread and misreport numbers in reports, as he did on Sunday in his column on rollover crashes, according to a concerned reader:

"The Road Warrior continues to demonstrate an inability in his March 3 column to correctly report information from government reports, such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration annual traffic fatalities for passengers involved in vehicle rollovers.

"The Road Warrior's problems are so bad that he is unable to correctly report on a graph that is published in his own column.

"He indicated that rollovers account for 2 out of 3 SUV deaths in New Jersey.

"The graph in his column clearly shows that rollover deaths in SUV's have NOT exceeded 50% of all SUV deaths since the mid-1990's, with the average closer to 45% in the past 10 years.

"Readers should also always use caution when encountering any of the Road Warrior's published scientific information, which inevitably defies scientific laws."

Read the full e-mail to management on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Help! I've fallen, and lost my glasses