Hackensack Council race wasn't over when fat guy sang

After mail-in ballots were counted, businessman Jason W. Some, right, lost the Hackensack City Council seat that he appeared to have won on Tuesday. (Photo credit: Hackensack Scoop)

At the Sept. 1 meeting, Some was seated at right, next to Councilman David Sims. Some was appointed to the seat in April after Councilwoman Rose Greenman resigned.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Teacher's assistant Deborah Keeling-Geddis turns out to be the winner in Tuesday's special Hackensack City Council election, upsetting incumbent Jason W. Some.

Keeling-Geddis received 92 votes on mail-in ballots, bringing her total to 803 and winning her a single unexpired term on the governing body, the Bergen County Clerk's Office said this morning.

Some, an appointee who ran with the backing of Mayor John Labrosse and other council members, had a total of 774 votes when mail-in ballots were counted.

School board President Jason S. Nunnermacker received a total of 746 votes -- the second time he lost a bid for the council, which he has been assailing since reformers prevailed in the May 2013 election.

Richard L. Cerbo, son of a former mayor, trailed with a total of 261 votes, including mail-in ballots.

When unofficial results from voting machines were released on Tuesday a little before 10 p.m., Some was the top vote-getter with 724 votes, edging out Keeling-Geddis with 711 votes.

Today's paper

On Page 1 today, The Record lists all of the problems the state Legislature's bigger Democratic majority faces after Tuesday's election, but soft pedals Governor Christie's role in creating them.

After covering the GOP bully since early 2010 and reporting on his 400-plus vetoes, the editors still feel compelled to politicize the problems, putting words of criticism into the mouth of a Democratic leader, Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto of Secaucus:

Election results just show "the constituents in the state of New Jersey that the Democrats are who they trust and who they want to lead the middle class that's been crushed under this administration" (A-1).

Breaking mall news

At North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, money talks, especially revenue from the paper's biggest advertisers.

Today, in return for all that moola, the Borg family gives The Shops at Riverside in Hackensack front-page billing for plans to open a luxury zone for "25 high-end fashion brands."

The multi-million dollar makeover apparently is intended to lure the wealthy away from the luxury wing at Garden State Plaza in nearby Paramus.

Those upscale shops often resemble a ghost town, with store employees standing around gossiping or staring vacantly out of display windows.

Local news?

Today's Local is a heady mix of election and police news, with two pages of death notices followed by two pages of unofficial town-by-town results in local and school board races.

On L-9, a photo caption incorrectly describes Tesla's Model S four-door hatchback as "all electronic." That should be "all electric."

Bus station story on Page 1 is full of heat, but no light

Workmen were so repulsed by the design of this Woodland Street house, on the East Hill of Englewood, they abandoned the site.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's coverage of mass transit in the past decade or more has been decidedly negative, and today's front-page story on a new bus station in Manhattan is no exception.

Who can forget the anti-light rail stories penned by onetime transportation reporter Tom Davis?

Or the editors ignoring the lack of rush-hour seats on NJ Transit trains in recent years, and refusing to call on the Port Authority to add a second reverse bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.

Staff Writer John Cichowski transformed the Road Warrior commuting column into a pulpit for drivers, running hundreds of emails from crackpots whose only interest is to see their names in print.

Now, transportation reporter Christopher Maag is tackling a proposal for a midtown Manhattan bus station with a maximum of controversy and a minimum of intelligence (A-1). 

It starts with the headline:

"A busload of cash"

The minimum cost of $7.5 billion stands alone in the story without any information on how much the Port Authority might be able to land in federal grants or what air rights sold to apartment or office developers might fetch.

There is nothing here on how many cars expanded bus service would take off the road, reducing pollution and boosting worker productivity.

The bi-state agency's midtown Manhattan bus terminal hasn't worked for years. The only solution is to replace it, and The Record should get behind the proposal.

In one of his first major acts in office, Governor Christie killed new Hudson River rail tunnels, setting back expanded train service a decade or more.

No one expects Christie to come out in favor of the Port Authority spending billions on a new bus station, but at least the GOP bully should stay out of the way.

The agency isn't tax supported, and will use grants, toll money and fees from airports and seaports to pay for the new terminal.

Hiding heroin

Among all the Law & Order stories the editors used to flesh out today's Local news section, the one about a male suspect hiding 40 bags of heroin in his sock caught my eye (L-2).

Today, Cliffview Pilot.com carried a similar story, but with a spin only former Law & Order Editor Jerry DeMarco could put on it:

"A pregnant Pennsylvania woman accused of stashing 89 folds of heroin in her vagina during a traffic stop [on Route 208 in Glen Rock] was due in court tomorrow...."

See: Summons, no bail for pregnant woman


Sloppy editing

The first paragraph of a story on the main Business page reports Tesla Motors sells "$100,000 luxury vehicles" (L-7).

But later, the story reports the all-electric cars sell for $71,000 to $140,000.

Maybe the reporter and editor averaged the price of different versions of Tesla's Model S.

Bridgegate probe targets only delay the inevitable

If you live in Hackensack, your property taxes don't pay for buses to take your children to school, unless they are handicapped. On Wednesday, this bus dropped off disabled children at the four-story high school, where the elevator used by the handicapped has been broken for about two months.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

First, they lawyered up. Now, they're shutting up.

We can only imagine what Bridget Anne Kelly is trying to hide by refusing to turn over documents to state lawmakers investigating last September's George Washington Bridge lane closures (The Record's front page today).

Many believe the resulting gridlock in Fort Lee was part of a pattern of political retribution by the Christie administration in Democratic strongholds in the months leading up to last November's election, when Christie won a second term.

Kelly, Governor Christie's former deputy chief of staff, is shown in a Page 1 photo today wearing a string of pearls, a suggestion of the noose she deserves for her infamous e-mail to the Port Authority, which operates the bridge:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Not that Kelly

Many readers are sorry the headline over a Charles Stile column on A-1 -- "Kelly looking for a new image, new job" -- doesn't refer to Mike Kelly, the tired columnist who often merely pushes around words to little effect.

Bridget Kelly's famous criminal lawyer, Michael Critchley, challenged the state Legislature's subpoenas for more documents, including earlier e-mails, "on constitutional grounds." 

He even said there is no proof she sent the e-mail that blew open the Bridgegate scandal and tied the lane closures to Christie's inner circle and his cronies at the Port Authority, including David Wildstein, who answered with an e-mail of his own, "Got it."

Exaggerated headline

The headline -- "GWB inquiry on trial" -- is the kind of simplistic ignorance that exists in most newsrooms.

And no one, including Staff Writer Shawn Boburg, believes Superior Court Assignment Judge Mary C. Jacobsen will kill the subpoenas for documents from Bridget Kelly and former Christie campaign manager Bill Stepien.

Newsroom potholes

Many drivers yawned when they saw today's Page 1 story on New Jersey's decision to repave its stretch of the Palisade Interstate Parkway, which is used by a small minority of The Record's readers.

The story, written by Road Warrior John Cichowski, continues his pattern of exaggeration and hype about potholes when he reports "some cabdrivers refuse to use the Bergen County portion."

My recollection is that a past Road Warrior column quoted one man who said his cabdriver refused to use the parkway.

Why isn't the state going to repave state highways that are in equally poor condition or award grants to municipalities like Hackensack that can't seem to find the money to repave Prospect Avenue and other pockmarked streets?

More corrections

Corrections on A-2 of a story on The Children's Place and a non-profit item have readers wondering if The Record will ever correct the hundreds of errors that have piled up in the Road Warrior column in the past decade.

The headline on A-3 today makes it sound like protesters have succeeded in getting Christie to renominate New Jersey Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, a Democrat, but the story says that isn't the case:

Protesters push

Christie to rename

Rabner to bench 

Battle of the rich

The Record has resumed its blanket coverage of the Hudson News inheritance battle, which is playing out in Superior Court in Hackensack, where James Cohen is testifying (L-1).

Publisher Stephen A. Borg has ordered Editor Marty Gottlieb to report more on the activities of multimillionaires like himself.

That will mean Staff Writer Kibret Markos, who covers the courthouse, will continue to neglect civil trials involving lesser folks.

Wrong photos

The Tesla story on L-8 uses photos of an all-electric roadster the company stopped taking orders for in August 2011. 

Why didn't the Business editors use photos of the current all-electric sedan, the Model S?