Third story on small-plane crash still doesn't get it right

Abma's Farm & Market in Wyckoff was closed on Labor Day.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers know Labor Day is what editors call "a slow news day," but that's still no excuse for the third story in four days on pilot Jack Rosenberg.

The Spring Valley, N.Y., man is shown in a Page 1 photo today, recovering in a hospital bed from broken bones and other injuries, wearing what looks like a skull cap.

The Record's story not only doesn't say whether Rosenberg is an Orthodox Jew or if the slice of pizza he ate was kosher (A-6), it raises other questions.

Why is the Woodland Park daily doing a third story on the crash, and why is it all over the front page?

What's the big deal? 

Don't all small-plane pilots who go down after their engines conk out try to avoid injuring or killing other people on the ground?

Flawed story 

And why was first-day coverage of the crash on Friday missing the crucial details about Rosenberg deliberately turning his crippled plane away from cross-country runners and others on a Tenafly field?

Or, as the overworked police reporter, Staff Writer Stefanie Dazio, put it:

"As Jack Rosenberg looked out the window of his small plane ... hurtling 60 [mph] to 70 mph over the Cresskill and Tenafly border and saw dozens of young faces on a school field that would have made a perfect landing site, the father of seven knew he'd have to find another spot" (A-1).

Even my shortened version of that lead paragraph is enough to choke a horse.

Small-plane menace

Small planes like the one Rosenberg was piloting seem to crash all too often, usually with fatalities. 

When they're not crashing, small, medium and large planes, and the noise they make, have a huge impact on the quality of life in Bergen County, especially if you live in Hackensack, Teaneck and other towns near Teterboro Airport.

One story on Rosenberg would have been enough, but The Record's reporters and assignment editors never seem willing to hustle and do the legwork needed for such thorough reporting.

The two follow-ups corrected an error in the first account that Rosenberg contacted air-traffic controllers at La Guardia Airport; it was Teterboro Airport.

Overlooked pilot

Instead of a rehash and regurgitation of pilot Jack Rosenberg's crash, some enterprising editor should have put the obituary of a Tuskegee Airman on the front page today.

You'll find the compelling life story of Calvin Spann, 90, a former Englewood resident, literally buried in the back of Local (L-8).

The obit illuminates how African Americans in North Jersey still face discrimination today.

As a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps, Spann flew 26 combat missions, including the longest bomber escort mission of the 15th Air Force.

When Spann returned home, he wanted to become a commercial pilot, but the major airlines wouldn't hire African Americans.

The sub-headline on Spann's obituary says incorrectly he "faced segregation after war." 

He "found a job in pharmaceutical sales and settled in Englewood," the obituary notes.

Spann faced discrimination, but the black and Hispanic children attending Englewood schools today still face segregation in the elementary and middle-school grades.

Virtually all of the white children in Englewood attend private schools, and officials have sought to desegregate only the high school.

Editors are minding police only when they break the law

The man who parked this minivan in a reserved space steps from the entrance to 24 Hour Fitness in Paramus this morning appeared to be able bodied, but his enormous beer belly may have qualified him for a handicap parking permit.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The tabloid news leading The Record's front page today -- a Glen Rock detective accused of sexting teen girls (A-1) -- exposes the editors' refusal to examine how well the police protect us.

Whether it's a rash of burglaries in tony Tenafly or drive-by shootings in impoverished Paterson, the irresponsible Woodland Park daily has simply ignored the performance of police departments, even when innocent lives are lost.

In 2010, The Record did report on the impact of police salaries on property tax bills and crime. A chart listing salaries stated:

"The average police officer's 2009 base pay was almost $104,000 in Bergen County and nearly $88,000 in Passaic County, with some of the highest pay in lower-crime areas and some of the lower salaries in higher-crime communities.

"Here are averages by municipality, along with crime rates and the percent of officers earning at least $100,000. Data covers patrolmen up through police chiefs."

P.R. for cops 

One reason police performance is ignored by The Record's editors is their continued reliance on routine crime, fire and accident news to fill their columns.

To keep the flow of police, fire and accident news coming, local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza knock themselves out doing public relations for the police and other first responders.

What other explanation is there for why they ran photos showing water-emergency training for local firefighters on the front of Local today (L-1)?

Or, how about a long story on wealthy Wyckoff adding five police officers (L-2)?

And then there is a preview of the Ramsey Rescue Squad putting on "a simulated rescue of a person trapped in a sewer" (L-3).

We pay them handsomely to do those jobs. If they don't, the editors should be pointing that out.

Salary cuts

Another sign the editors want to stay on the good side of the police is their reaction to Governor Christie's order to limit local school superintendents to his salary of $175,000 a year, resulting in many cuts.

The Record never questioned then or in the five years since that move why he didn't order the same cuts for nearly 70 local police chiefs in Bergen County, many of whom are making close to or more than $200,000 a year, a huge burden on property tax payers.

Goes to far

Also on Page 1 today, a photo over line goes way too far:

"CRUSHING BLOW TO WATER SUPPLY"

Before you rush to your faucet, take a look at the caption for the photo under that sensationally exaggerated statement.

Residents in only three of the 70 towns in Bergen County towns were "warned to boil water" (A-1).

Eye on The Record

will return on Sunday

Publisher backs use of accident photos to fill gaps in news

Pat Kinney, a freelancer who wrote the Neighbors from Japan column that appeared in The Record, is offering her services as an English teacher. This notice is on a bulletin board at Mitsuwa Marketplace, the Japanese supermarket and food court in Edgewater.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's lazy local-news editors continue to fill gaps in coverage with non-fatal accidents and other minor incidents on North Jersey's highways and byways.

Today, none other than Publisher Stephen A. Borg contributed a photo of a humdrum van fire on Route 80 east on Friday afternoon, and earned a credit line: "STEPHEN A. BORG/STAFF" (L-3).

Of course, the big news on Routes 80 east, 46 east and 4 east on Friday afternoon was massive traffic congestion approaching the George Washington Bridge, partly due to the lack of mass-transit alternatives.

In fact, the lead story in today's Local section reports Democratic lawmakers are urging the $1 billion extension of NJ Transit's electrified light-rail system to downtown Englewood and Englewood Hospital and Medical Center (L-1).

Federal officials quoted in the story estimate that every $1 billion spent on infrastructure creates 35,000 jobs.

But non-polluting light rail also takes cars off the road, a benefit lost on Tenafly officials who opposed extending the service to their town.

The Record ran stories quoting borough officials who demonized light rail, and never published an editorial criticizing those officials for their opposition.

At least when it comes to mass transit, Borg, who lives in a Tenafly McMansion, is following in the footsteps of his father, Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg of Englewood, in not bothering to be a force for positive change in his community. 

Living v. dead

We get it. It's a miracle that two young women survived on Feb. 13, when their Toyota RAV4 left a Route 80 bridge over the Hackensack River and fell 60 feet, landing on a tree (A-1).

But why is their reunion with the firefighters who rescued them on the front page today? 

On Wednesday, a story reported that on Monday, a 64-year-old pedestrian was fatally injured by a car turning onto Kennedy Street in Hackensack, near Route 80, and except for her name and age, The Record didn't bother finding out anything about her.

Did Hue Dang live in the neighborhood? Was she a mother and grandmother? Was she treated like chopped liver because she was a senior?

Is her family planning to sue the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office and John Straniero of Wayne, the detective sergeant behind the wheel of the unmarked Ford Crown Victoria that struck her?

Sewage v. taxes

Whose decision was it to run a story on higher sewer-connection fees for Hackensack developers on Thursday?

That was a day before belatedly informing residents a budget the City Council introduced on Tuesday night would hike property taxes by $115 for the average homeowner (Friday's L-2).

No news today, but here are a few second looks

Repairs to the parking lot, roadway and sidewalk of the Alfred N. Sanzari Medical Arts Building on Essex Street in Hackensack seemed to drag on for months, and made visiting Starbucks Coffee a challenge. When I stopped there on Friday, the work had finally been completed.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Some days you have to question why the media spends more time trying to predict the future than they do on reporting what has happened.

In the crystal-ball category, you can put all the speculation in the past few years about who is going to be the standard bearer for the do-nothing Republicans in the 2016 presidential race.

Today, on Page 1 of The Record, Herb Jackson's NJ/DC column on the fate of a new Hudson River rail tunnel also falls into the former, "no news today" category.

But you have to believe the clueless columnist has never fought the horrendous traffic into New York when his lead paragraph mentions the tunnel in the same breath as projects denounced "as wasteful pork" (A-1).

That's in keeping with the policy of The Record's transportation reporters to ignore how difficult it has been in recent years to find a seat on a rush-hour train.

Home rule

Since Jan. 1, the Local section has been filled with swearing in stories and photos, but today, the editors ran an especially unflattering photo of Jayme Ouellette, who was bending to place her hand on a Bible held by her step-grandson (L-3).

Either the new Rochelle Park mayor is pregnant or she is overweight, but readers are left to speculate.

Amateur hour

All of the swearing in stories have run without comment from the editorial writers, who should at least ask residents to hope that the latest amateur elected to run their town will do a better job than the previous one.

In wealthy Tenafly, the editors haven't attempted to explain why residents rejected two proposals that would have had big environmental benefits, an expanded nature center and extension of NJ Transit's light-rail system to the town's center.

Or why town officials didn't override those narrow-minded residents.

A story on the Tenafly reorganization ran on Sunday's L-3.

Nazerah Bugg

Stories on tributes to Nazerah Bugg, 14, the aspiring Paterson basketball player who was killed by random gunfire in September, haven't reported whether police are doing a better job of protecting Silk City residents from gun violence (L-1 on Sunday).

In fact, the image of the police The Record has promoted in recent years is heroic, and the editors have failed to question the job they are doing -- whether it's stopping the murder of innocent young girls in Paterson or burglaries in Tenafly.

This policy has backfired, as shown by all of the woefully incomplete stories The Record runs on pedestrian deaths, murders and other news the police and prosecutors refuse to discuss with reporters.

Imagine sick kids wearing hospital gowns to a party

The 5,500-seat auditorium of Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan on Sunday afternoon as ticket holders were being seated for the 2014 Christmas Spectacular starring the high-kicking Rockettes, a huge orchestra, dancing Santa Clauses and much more.

The lobby of Radio City, an art-deco masterpiece that opened on Dec. 27,1932, and was restored in 1999, including the replacement of all seats, carpeting and wallpaper, and the restoration of murals, including "Men Without Women" in the lounge outside the lower-level men's bathroom, below.

After the 90-minute show, we walked less than a block to see the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center and, frankly, we were underwhelmed. The tree is towering, as usual, but this year, they skimped on the lights. Even the smaller Christmas tree on Main Street in Hackensack makes a bigger splash. Imagine that.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

There are reporters at The Record who don't need editing, others who don't get editing and still others who should have their heads examined.

Veteran Jay Levin, who writes the local obituaries after many years of thankless duty on the night copy desk, is a reporter who doesn't need editing, as two of his pieces in today's Local section show (L-1 and L-6).

Levin is at the top of his game, in stark contrast to Road Warrior John Cichowski, a confused reporter who gets no editing and who has committed hundreds of errors, not to mention all the wrong advice he's given drivers, young and old.

Another veteran, Mike Kelly, also gets no editing, and the result is one long, rambling column after another as he pushes around thousands of words in search of a strong opinion, which the reporter doesn't seem to have.

Party for sick kids

Then, there is Linda Moss, a reporter who covers commercial real estate for The Record, according to her Twitter profile.

On Sunday, Moss was on weekend duty when she was assigned to cover the 30th annual holiday party of the Tomorrow's Children Fund for kids who have been treated at Hackensack University Medical Center for cancer and serious blood disorders.

There was so little real news in Monday's paper that I found myself reading Moss' story on the Local front all the way through.

I was shocked at a sentence on the continuation page (Monday's L-3)

A photo showed two of the cutest children you could imagine posing with Santa Claus at a Hasbrouck Heights hotel where the party was held:

"The girls and boys were dressed up in their nicest attire, not hospital gowns, for the party," Moss reported [italics added].

How many editors and copy editors saw that and allowed "not hospital gowns" to get in the paper? 

Where was Production Editor Liz Houlton, who supervises the news and copy desks and is paid six figures to keep such an inappropriate image out of the paper?

Did the children with cancer and blood disorders once attend the annual holiday party in hospital gowns? Why even mention them?

Covering advertisers

The Record's editors may be insensitive to children with cancer, but they bend over backwards to cover their biggest advertisers, such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord & Taylor, Victoria's Secret and other retailers (Page 1 today and Monday).

The local assignment editors also seem to be ordering more coverage of wealthy communities.

Monday's Local front was dominated by an article and photos about schools districts in Tenafly, Ridgewood and Glen Rock, all of which are reexamining their homework polices.

When is the last time you read a story -- any story -- about Hackensack schools?

Upscale restaurants

The Better Living cover story on Monday recommended eight "great" restaurants, but five of them are expensive.

You have to turn the page to find three that are moderately priced.

The recommendations come from Elisa Ung, the paper's restaurant reviewer, who is lucky enough to have The Record pay for all of those artery clogging steaks and desserts she eats so obsessively.

Maybe she would appreciate value, if she had to pay for some of that food herself.

Today's paper

The Record's coverage of the Affordable Care Act has been largely negative, echoing the complaints of such conservative Republicans as Governor Christie.

Staff Writer Lindy Washburn and her assignment editor also continue to obscure how Christie and Republican governors in 35 other states tried to sabotage what they labeled "Obamacare," a derogatory term The Record and other media love to use.

In more than a year of covering the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act, Washburn and the paper's other medical writers have never actually interviewed the people who applied for health insurance.

Today, The Record's lead story reports that North Jersey residents who bought insurance "came from towns that are rich, poor and middle class, as well as municipalities where a majority vote Republican" (A-1).

Imagine what Record reporters could find out, if they actually interviewed readers and other residents of North Jersey instead of endlessly quoting experts, pollsters and spin doctors, and examining the politics of every issue under the sun.

Red-light cameras

In a letter to the editor, Keith Remland of Lincoln Park says of red-light cameras:

"Their biggest plus is safety" (A-10).

Remland said in a few words what two Road Warrior columns tried to hide from readers as Cichowski foamed at the mouth over "Big Brother," and quoted critics of the $85 fines, which many cash-strapped towns welcome.

Women's news?

Did a male editor lay out L-3 today, hoping to package stories on two different women?

In the bottom right corner, a story about a substitute teacher facing more sex charges appears next to one on Ridgewood's second woman firefighter.

Another Marty Gottlieb front page that doesn't affect us

In Manhattan, workers are trimming the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, above. The tree-lighting ceremony is scheduled for Dec. 3.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A sensational child-abuse trial in federal court involving an Army couple from Mount Holly. 

Rewrites of two other newspapers -- on sports wagering in America, and the resignation of Governor Christie's chief of staff, who lost hope of ever becoming New Jersey's attorney general.

And a real fluke: A Morris County homeowner who was awarded his house after the creditors missed a legal deadline.

This last story carries an inaccurate headline: The house isn't "free" since Gordon A. Washington paid $131,000 of the mortgage before defaulting, as noted in the A-1 data box.

This is another front page that is irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of North Jersey readers -- straight from the mind of Marty Gottlieb, the sophisticated New Yorker who is editor of The Record.

Where is the tree?

I guess the staff photographer sent to cover a "living memorial" to Waldwick Police Officer Christopher Goodell was in a rush to get to his next assignment.

The photo appears on Page 1 and the Local front, but doesn't show the copper beech tree planted to honor the cop who died when a truck driver plowed into his radar patrol car in July (A-1 and L-1).

HUMC profits

An L-1 story says nearly 200 Hackensack University Medical Center employees have accepted early retirement packages, but adds the non-profit "will hire far more people in the next 90 days than the number who are leaving."

The story also notes "two credit reporting agencies said that Hackensack -- a 775-bed medical center with $1.4 billion in annual revenue -- was doing very well financially."

As written, this story belongs on the Business page, not the Local news front, filled as it is with financial jargon.

The story also is missing any explanation of why anyone but the affected employees should care.

Nature center

The Record has done a terrible job of explaining the opposition to expansion of the Tenafly Nature Center (L-1).

Residents voted against the proposal in a Nov. 4 referendum, but today's story notes local officials had called a larger center "a boon to Tenafly."

The story also says "both sides traded accusations of misinformation," but I cannot recall the paper making any attempt to separate fact from fiction before the election.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives in Tenafly.

The Woodland Park daily also didn't do much to separate fact from fiction when hysterical Tenafly officials turned thumbs down on extension of NJ Transit's electrified light-rail line to the wealthy borough.  

Second looks

November is Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month, but the first story that mentioned the disease likely was the obituary of former Rep. Marge Roukema on Thursday's front page.

Roukema, who was elected to the House of Representatives 11 time, was one of those "socially moderate, fiscally conservative Northeastern Republicans [who] became increasingly rare in the years after she cast her last House vote in 2002."

The obituary by Staff Writer Herb Jackson includes praise from Democrats and Republicans alike, but Christie's name is conspicuously absent.

Roukema retired in November 2001 after narrow victories in primaries "in which challenger Scott Garrett of Sussex County said she was too liberal."

Hollywood reporters

Did you see Thursday's Better Living cover story on "a new spate of movies on journalists"?

Do any of the new or old movies from La La Land even acknowledge the mediocrity of so many local daily newspapers like The Record that are struggling to stay relevant in our digital age?

And where is the analysis of unchallenged "sound bites" that have now migrated to print journalism?

In a brief on Thursday's front page, The Record quoted House Speaker John Boehner, who called the climate deal between the U.S. and China "the latest example of the president's crusade against affordable, reliable energy," an apparent reference to coal.

A longer Boehner quote appeared in The Washington Post story on Thursday's A-10, but that paper never reported whether the ultraconservative Republican is referring to coal generating plants, which are the direct cause of mercury in fish and air pollution.

The latter probably has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. 

More errors

As he has shown so many times before, Road Warrior John Cichowski is unable to accurately report data from the annual state police report on road deaths (Friday's L-1).

Here is a summary from the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his Friday column, the Road Warrior goes down his mistake-filled wormhole of reporting about another New Jersey State Police annual report (this time for 2013) on roadway fatalities.

"The Road Warrior indicated that the increase in fatalities for Bergen County pedestrians and truck drivers was part of a 'trend.'

"They are not part of any trend.

"Bergen pedestrian deaths have gone down in 3 of the last 6 years. Tractor-trailer deaths have gone down in 2 of the last 4 years and are on pace to go down this year.

"Road Warrior indicated that the 2010 law requiring drivers to stop for to pedestrians in marked crosswalks has 'driven down' fatalities.

"Unfortunately, pedestrian deaths have gone up every year since 2010, except for last year, and are on pace to greatly exceed last year’s record low number of fatalities."

See: Road Warrior reporting mistakes climb

More speculative news for gamblers lands on Page 1

Fort Lee police closed the Route 4 approach to the George Washington Bridge without warning on Sunday morning, then after a delay of about 5 minutes, opened one lane. Serious accident? Carjacking? As I drove by, two police officers were standing outside of their cruisers, looking down at a large pothole.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

What hold does Staff Writer John Brennan have on the clueless editors?

How did the former sports reporter get another speculative story on whether North Jersey will get a casino in a couple of years on Page 1 of The Record today?

Brennan -- honorary chairman of the Garden State chapter of Gamblers Anonymous -- has loudly talked up his Meadowlands stories for many years, wearing down local-news Editors Tim Nostrand, Deirdre Sykes and others.

His ridiculous stories on the racetrack and the possibility of casinos appear on the Local front and front page, aimed directly at gambling addicts.

Now, he's got Editor Marty Gottlieb in his grip, but that means the vast majority of readers have to turn the pages of the Woodland Park daily, looking for something relevant to their lives.

Local news

On the Local front today, a story on a Colombian festival moving from Hackensack to a larger Leonia site doesn't mention Englewood's annual Colombian celebration (L-1).

Two other stories report on express bus service to link Englewood with the Secaucus Junction rail hub (L-1), and the replacement of the shuttered Lincoln School and a firehouse with a $60 million residential/retail project (L-3).

'Children not at play'

But the small city already has built hundreds of apartments downtown and on both sides of Route 4, with no discernible positive impact on Palisade Avenue merchants.

The segregated Lincoln School was more than 100 years old when it was closed in 2008, and a plan to convert it into a recreation center was rejected by city officials, who cited the high cost.

More mass transit

Englewood continues to develop its mass transit, with the plan for the awkwardly named Bus Rapid Transit and making Englewood Hospital & Medical Center the terminus for NJ Transit's Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system.

Meanwhile, Tenafly has rejected light-rail service, and officials have cited residents' constitutional right to drive enormous SUVs into the city, pollute the air and waste fossil fuel.

Tenafly counts Publisher Stephen A. Borg among its wealthiest residents.

NJ Transit's electrified Hudson-Bergen Light Rail in Jersey City. Englewood hopes agency officials will extend the system to the hospital and medical center north of downtown.

Take a break from The Record of Woodland Park

A new public garden opposite the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack.

The Record today calls on burned-out Columnist Mike Kelly to report on a Jersey shore that still has a long way to go on the road to recovery (Page 1).

Of course, this piece was sorely needed as a counterpoint to the wildly exaggerated front-page coverage on Saturday that was orchestrated by Governor Christie and the "Today" show.

Now, it amounts to furious backpedaling by Editor Marty Gottlieb, a New Yorker who is so enamored of the GOP bully and so solidly behind his bid for a second term.

Superstorm Sandy damage on Palisade Avenue in Englewood.

This Memorial Day edition is a good time to take a break from all of this amateurish journalism.

As usual, readers' letters today tell you more about North Jersey than news and opinion editors do.

Edith and Gordon Wallace of Glen Rock bemoan the wrong-headed decision by Tenafly officials to reject light-rail service, and by some residents to oppose an education building at the nature center (A-11).

The Record's support for light rail and mass transit in recent years has been lukewarm at best.

Editors allow Tenafly to demonize mass transit

Rush hour at the Lincoln Tunnel, above; Manhattan's Penn Station and the Port Authority Bus Terminal, below, show North Jersey needs more mass transit, not less.

NJ Transit rail waiting hall at Penn Station in Manhattan.

NJ Transit commuters slowly making their way to an escalator that takes them to upper-level platforms and buses to Hackensack, Cresskill and other North Jersey towns.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

NJ Transit's fully electrified light-rail system takes cars off the road, eases traffic congestion, cuts pollution and saves gasoline. 

Yet, The Record has allowed Tenafly officials to turn those positives into negatives, culminating in NJ Transit's decision to scrap a plan to extend light rail to the wealthy community, which counts Publisher Stephen A. Borg as a resident (A-1 and L-1).

Mass transit can't catch a break in North Jersey, where two new Hudson River rail tunnels were scrapped by SUV-riding Governor Christie in October 2010.

NJ Transit Newark Light Rail cars crossing Broad Street to enter the Newark-Broad St. Station. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) 

Tom Davis is remembered fondly by Hackensack residents as a muckraking journalist who wrote a series of hard-hitting stories when he covered the city.

But when Davis was promoted to transportation reporter, he wrote negative stories about the extension of light rail to Englewood and other towns.

That tradition was carried on after Davis left the paper, which this year and last reported the wild claims of Tenafly officials without rebuttal from NJ Transit and light-rail commuters.

One explanation is that the current deputy local-news assignment editor, Dan Sforza, wrote at least two "highways of the future" takeouts when he was a transportation reporter.

Sforza did his best to ignore mass transit, even refusing to report on defective NJ Transit buses with screeching rear brakes that ruined the sleep of people living along such bus routes as Grand Avenue in Englewood.

Today's Local section has no news from Hackensack or many other communities, but readers will find three more engaging local obituaries on L-6.

Alliance strikes back

A public-private partnership called the Hackensack Main Street Business Alliance, also known as the Upper Main Alliance, is striking back at Eye on The Record and Victor E. Sasson.

Sasson reported in Wednesday's post he could not find the names of any Main Street restaurants taking part in Sunday's food-centered fund-raiser at The Shops at Riverside.

Sasson checked again today, and no Main Street restaurants are listed on any Web site connected to the event nor are they mentioned on The Record's Second Helpings blog.

On Hackensack Now.org, Editor Albert H. Dib, a city employee who is the alliance's executive director, wrote:

"Vsasson stated very inaccurately that the Alliance was not participating in the upcoming "Taste of Hackensack" [The correct name is  "The Taste in Hackensack"].  He made no attempt to check with the Alliance about its participation. The Alliance is participating in the event.   

"Vsasson has clearly violated this site's Registration Agreement terms not to post false or inaccurate statements. As a result, all of vsasson's future posts will be screened. For the record: This is the practice he currently uses on his own blog, wherein he screens all posts for content. [Eye on The Record screens all comments for content, not 'posts.']

 "Also, this 'Eye on the Record' topic thread has overstayed its welcome on this site and will likely be deleted in the near future. I am closing posting for this thread now." 

Albert [H.] Dib
Editor, Hackenacknow.org

Dib says on Hackensack Now that "four eateries from the Business Improvement District" are participating in the fund-raiser for the Hackensack Blue & Gold Scholarship Fund, which benefits Hackensack High School students, but he does not name them.

The alliance represents only Main Street restaurants and businesses between Atlantic Street and Clinton Place in Hackensack, and apparently does nothing for eating places or businesses in other parts of the 4-square-mile city.

Its work and half of Dib's city salary of roughly $64,000 is funded through an assessment on property owners, who must pay a property tax surcharge to the city.

One businessman calls the assessment "a grand ripoff," arguing the alliance provides services that the city properly should be supplying to residents and property owners.