Top Christie aide completes stone wall against GWB probe

Getting stuck in traffic on North Dean Street in downtown Englewood, where city officials have refused to install turn lanes at Palisade Avenue, the main shopping street, lest they lose revenue from the handful of parking meters that would have to be removed. Could the small city's big-city traffic problems and lack of free parking be hurting downtown restaurants and merchants?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Kevin O'Dowd -- Governor Christie's chief of staff during the George Washington Bridge lane closures last September -- demonstrated his brick-laying skills for legislative investigators on Monday.

O'Dowd completed the stone wall Christie, his closest aides and his cronies on the Port Authority put up after the political retribution scandal caused four days of gridlock in Democratic Fort Lee, and unleashed multiple investigations.

Knows nothing

The Record reports on A-1 today O'Dowd said he played no role in and had no knowledge of the lane closures, but he exposed a big Christie lie to the media last December.

O'Dowd testified that he gave Christie a copy of an e-mail that showed Bridget Anne Kelly, the deputy chief of staff, had knowledge of the lane closures as they occurred.

That was on the same day in December that Christie told the media that "no one on his staff had 'any knowledge' of the closures" (A-6).

In January, Kelly's infamous August e-mail came out: "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Not suspicious

O'Dowd was Kelly's supervisor, but he showed a shocking lack of curiosity or suspicion when the woman showed him an e-mail related to the lane closures.

Christie has rewarded O'Dowd's loyalty by nominating him to be the next attorney general, and he gave his staff average raises of 23%.

Who would want such a legal lightweight as the next attorney general?

O'Dowd's testimony on Monday was so lackluster, The Record led today's front page account by reporting "the Christie administration has spent more than $3 million responding to the ... controversy" (A-1).

Hackensack news

In the process of reporting on the proposed Hackensack budget, Staff Writer Christopher Maag corrected an earlier story calling former Municipal Prosecutor Richard E. Salkin the former city attorney (L-3).

Maag reports that a 4.37 percent property tax hike is "significant." The average homeowner would pay $161.79 more a year, according to the story.

The fiscal 2015 budget calls for the city to spend $94.4 million -- a 2.73 percent increase.

Englewood in denial

Englewood's downtown shopping and dining district is pockmarked with empty storefronts, and its streets are choked with traffic, but offer little if no free parking.

Yet, city officials apparently think all visitors want is free Wi-Fi (L-3).

More corrections

A-2 today carries two more corrections: the misspelling of a Paterson NAACP official's name, and two major errors in Monday's Page 1 story on payouts to police chiefs.

Monday's A-2 carried a correction that had me laughing out loud over the incredibly inept job being performed by six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton:

"The first paragraphs of the My Hometown profile on Alpine resident and CNBC anchor Sue Herera did not appear on BL-1 Sunday," according to the correction.

Mutual masturbation

Gee. Couldn't the hard-working Better Living editors find anyone besides another member of the arrogant media to profile?

The correction also said "the full article can be found today on L-6," meaning there was little local news in the section.

I am looking at Better Living's Sunday cover now, and the entire middle part of the page is covered by the My Hometown profile of Herera, an overweight woman who wears tons of makeup.

The Kara Yorio byline is nowhere to be seen, nor does any of Yorio's story appear on BL-1, just a map showing Bergen County from Englewood Cliffs to Alpine.

On BL-3, the continuation page, the profile picks up in mid-sentence.

Why run this profile in full? It certainly wasn't very interesting or hard-hitting. The theme is that the newscaster "relishes" the hometown feel of Alpine.

The headline over the full story on Monday's L-6 refers to Herera as an "anchor" in her community, an apparent reference to her weight.

More screw-ups

Unacknowledged errors are a way of life for Houlton, whose staff appears to have stopped fact-checking stories or proofreading pages before they go to press.

I didn't see any corrections of the June 3 Road Warrior column on New Jersey license plates.

Confused Staff Writer John Cichowski got it wrong when he said license plates are made of tin, even though they have been made of steel and aluminum for about 100 years, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers.

The reporter also was wrong claiming plates introduced in the 1970s were blue with tan lettering. The lettering was yellow.

Cichowski also wildly exaggerated the problem of "faded, peeling plates."

Road Warrior has tin ear for facts

This "Conserve Wildlife" license plate has been in use since the late 1990s.

The Record's telephone reporting cheats readers

On Wednesday morning, I saw freshly patched potholes on Prospect Avenue in Hackensack, near the Camelot high-rise, but Euclid and Prospect avenues, above, looked like this on Wednesday afternoon and today.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

A front-page headline in The Record today declares, "It's too soon to assess health law."

But Staff Writer Colleen Diskin, one of the least productive veterans in the Woodland Park newsroom, apparently did her news gathering with a telephone and a computer.

Diskin and her assignment editor saw no need for the reporter to leave the building and interview North Jersey residents in search of answers to all of the questions the story raises  (A-1 and A-8).

"Time will tell if it lowers

costs, adds subscribers"

That's the awkward sub-headline on the story, which cites "a paucity of data on a number of key questions."

Gee. What about going to a mall, and interviewing people who signed up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and seeking answers to those "key questions"?

That's Reporting 101. This tortured story cheats readers.

To complicate things, the story is labeled an "ANALYSIS," and filled with talking heads -- so-called experts and others who caution against drawing quick conclusions. 

One source's title consumes three lines on the continuation page.

Money talks

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed that money talks, freeing wealthy donors to give to as many political candidates and campaigns as they want (A-1).

An editorial appears to be displeased with the high court declaring that campaign contributions are a form of "free speech" (A-18).

But The Record covered Governor Christie's last campaign against Democrat Barbara Buono based almost totally on how much money each candidate raised.

The editors anointed Christie, who had a huge lead in fund-raising, as the winner months before the November election.

Sloppy reporting

In many cases, Buono's campaign appearances were buried inside the paper, while Christie hogged Page 1 time and again.

Somehow, the Christie-loving editors, columnists and reporters never discovered just how desperate the GOP bully was, judging from this year's allegations of political retribution against Democrats who refused to endorse him for a second term.

For example, another Page 1 story today reports state employees sought Christie campaign endorsements from the same public officials they worked with in their taxpayer-funded jobs (A-1).

The Tesla Model S, an all-electric, four-door luxury sedan. The company is fighting a proposed ban on direct sales in New Jersey.

Law & Order

For the third or fourth day in a row, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza relies heavily on police, fire and court news to flesh out another thin local report (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

Instead of running a photo of a traffic jam caused by the lack of mass transit, Sforza runs a photo of a fuel spill in Fair Lawn that tied up traffic in several towns, thanks to our antiquated road system (L-2).

In Tuesday's Road Warrior column on L-1, Staff Writer John Cichowski made major errors in reprising parts of an interim state report on the benefits of red-light cameras.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

DOT makes a fool of the Road Warrior

Cheap reporting

The lamest form of business reporting is the anniversary story.

Today, Staff Writer Joan Verdon profiles Tony Conza, who copied an Italian hero sandwich and helped start the Blimpie fast-food chain 50 years ago (L-7).

Why waste the space? It's not as if Blimpie's low-quality, preservative-filled cold cuts broke any new nutritional ground.

In other business news, California-based Tesla is appealing the state Motor Vehicle Commission's decision to bar direct sale of the all-electric Model S after April 15 (L-8).

Tesla has showrooms in Paramus and Short Hills.

Editors resume their public relations for Christie

In Fort Lee, construction work is under way on a site across Park Avenue from the 47-story residential tower that is visible from almost everywhere in the borough, above and below. There is no indication whether a second residential tower like the first is going up at the site, which also is across the street from the George Washington Bridge local access lanes that are at the center of the Bridgegate political-retribution scandal.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

All the signs are there that The Record's editors, columnists and reporters are resuming their work of repairing Governor Christie's battered image.

It isn't news that a prominent Republican lawyer Christie hired to conduct an "internal" investigation, and the attorney's staff, which has ties to the governor, may have cleared him, but it is all over Page 1 today.

And what did readers turned off by Charles Stile's political columns do to deserve two "he's-not-as-bad-as-he-seems" columns on the front page today and Monday?

So far, the internal probe has cost taxpayers more than $1 million.

It's hard to understand how the editors and Christie's allies see such positive signs when members of the governor's inner-circle continue to stonewall on turning documents over to the state Legislature's Bridgegate investigative committee (A-6).

Men are animals

If you classify this latest flurry of stories about the GOP bully as "animal news," the Woodland Park daily seems to be devoting a lot of space lately to four-legged species.

Witness Sunday's front page, where a so-called debate over a pro athlete's dog-fighting conviction played out.

Today, the front of Local and L-3 are dominated by tear-jerking horse and dog rescue stories.

I guess nothing was going on in Hackensack, Teaneck and other towns that are missing from today's Local section, which is put out by editors who some would call "horse's asses."

Tesla rescue?

The first Business page today reports a Bergen County legislator wants to make it legal for Tesla to sell its revolutionary electric car directly to New Jersey consumers (L-7).

The company's CEO says Christie and New Jersey auto dealers made a "backroom deal" to stop Tesla from selling its Model S premium sedan from Paramus and Short Hills showrooms.

"The governor talks a big game about attracting innovative businesses to the state, but this move does the exact opposite," says Assemblyman Timothy Eustace, D-Paramus, sponsor of a bill to amend the restrictive law.

The only editorial comment on the controversy came from freelance cartoonist Margulies on Sunday's O-2, which showed Christie telling a kid at a 5-cents lemonade stand he can't sell directly and has to go through "a beverage dealer." 

Funeral home cops

Monday's Page 1 story on retired police officers who work at North Jersey funeral homes may help rehabilitate their image, which the paper savaged in a series of stories on high salaries and pensions when Francis "Frank" Scandale was running the newsroom.

The paper argued that high teacher and police salaries were the chief cause of municipalities' financial problems.

But why does Monday's story have two photos of the same man, Sal Arena, who was a captain on the Pompton Lakes force?