On Christie, black lawmaker speaks for millions

Like many local shopping districts in North Jersey, downtown Englewood continues to struggle. The Mitchell Simon hardware store at 15 S. Dean St. remains vacant a year after it closed, above. The Record basically ignores why Englewood, Hackensack, Teaneck and other downtowns have been unable to recover from the recession while devoting a lot of copy to big mall retailers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Let's hear it for Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, who calls all the newly released Bridgegate documents "disturbing."

The Mercer County Democrat also urges Governor Christie to "think about resigning" and "take all his friends [aides and Port Authority cronies] with him."

You won't find Watson Coleman quoted on Page 1 of The Record today. Instead, Editor Marty Gottlieb runs a silly, who-cares-story about one mall retailer spying on another.

Speaks for millions

Like Watson Coleman, many millions have been sickened by what she calls "the bully environment and brazen callousness and disrespect this administration has shown toward the people of our state" (A-3).

The story is quick to point out "no evidence has yet emerged showing Christie was personally involved" in early September local access lane closures that caused gridlock at the Fort Lee end of the George Washington Bridge.

But shouldn't the GOP bully take a hit for apparently encouraging his closest aides, his Port Authority appointees and his lieutenant governor to exact political revenge on Democrats who didn't endorse him for reelection last year?

Watson Coleman stepped down from the investigative panel probing the scandal, and her comments prompted a moronic Republican assemblyman to call her "the nuttiest leftist" in an upcoming congressional primary.

If Assemblyman Michael Patrick Harris, R-Morris, is truly interested in finding "nuts," all he has to do is check on who is working for Christie.

This store is going out of business across the street from the vacant hardware store and next to Englewood's parking garage, which is no longer being staffed. Visitors must pay $2.50 for a minimum of three hours of parking at a pay station. Unlike Hackesnack and Teaneck, Englewood doesn't offer any free parking downtown.

More sloppy editing

A related story on more than 20 hours of 911 and dispatch calls during four days of gridlock in Fort Lee -- "Fear, panic and anger at the GWB" -- delivers a lot less than the headline promises (L-1).

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza must have been taking a nap, and no one else edited the second paragraph, which begins:

 "One after one the calls started pouring in as several local lanes to the George Washington Bridge were intentionally shut down" (L-1).

"One after one"? Shouldn't that be, "One after another, ..."? Also, two of three local lanes were closed, not "several."

The cat's meow

Also today, the editors decided to give more space to photos of cats wearing hats (BL-1 and BL-4) than to a Teaneck program to encourage more participation of fathers in their children's education (L-1 photo and caption).

Oh, that's right. Black History Month is over, and the editors are just going back to basically ignoring all of the African-Americans, Jamaican-Americans and other black residents of North Jersey until next February.