Ethics, overtime abuses hide Port Authority's real failure

The Record's editors haven't bothered reporting on all of the unintended consequences of low gasoline prices and their impact on climate change: Cheap gas depresses the sales of hybrid and electric vehicles, and may prompt drivers to hold onto their gas-guzzling SUVs, aggravating air pollution. Those SUVs also take up more room on the road, worsening traffic congestion.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Critics refer to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey -- the behemoth bi-state transportation agency -- as the "Port Atrocity."

Today and Wednesday, The Record has published two front-page stories on overtime abuses by the agency's police officers and the many ethical questions surrounding its powerful commissioners.

But the agency's real failure is its refusal to expand mass transit (bus and rail), and reduce traffic congestion.

Even after the fourth toll hike in as many years on Sunday, few drivers are expected to leave their cars at home, because of limited mass-transit alternatives, including a gridlocked bus terminal in midtown Manhattan.

The Port Authority police have been tabloid fare for decades for collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime; there was nothing new in Staff Writer Shawn Boburg's A-1 story on Wednesday or today's editorial (A-18).

And ethical questions have hounded the commissioners for years before Governor Christie named a powerful lawyer who was his mentor, David Samson, to the chairmanship of the agency's board, which once met in secret before staging monthly public meetings (A-1).

Samson resigned in March after critics noted he cast votes that appeared to benefit his law firm.

Two more embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today; Wednesday's A-2 also had a correction -- of a Page 1 story on state pension funds.

Local news?

The assignment editors are so desperate to fill their Local section almost anything goes.

One look at this stupid headline tells you no resident of Bergen and Passaic counties has the least bit of interest in whatever is being reported:

N.J. won't

allow

Barclays

at Izod

Huh?

On L-2 today, Staff Writer Todd South identifies Richard E. Salkin as "a former city attorney," when Salkin is the former municipal prosecutor.

On L-3, Glen Rock police appear to be informing burglars they have nothing to fear.

Capt. Jonathan Miller is quoted as saying that "if something seems out of the ordinary -- like a car parked that isn't normal -- please call the police so we can check it out."

Is Miller telling burglars that police don't routinely patrol neighborhoods?

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Editors are exploiting every misery in Paterson

As commuters streamed by on a chilly spring day this week, homeless men and women warmed themselves with coffee inside the main NJ Transit entrance of Penn Station in Manhattan.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I pity readers who rely on The Record of Woodland Park for their knowledge of Paterson, a pioneering industrial center that harnessed the power of the Great Falls and immigrant workers to earn the title of "Silk City."

Under former Editor Francis "Frank" Scandale, Paterson was most often portrayed as a drug bazaar that lured white suburbanites, many of whom overdosed and met untimely deaths.

In a boneheaded decision, Scandale even ran a map showing readers where they could find drug dealers, and never put the city's Police Department on the spot for lax enforcement.

Editor Marty Gottlieb exploited that same Paterson theme in a 2013 series on North Jersey's heroin epidemic, and the stories were among the finalists in this year's Pulitzer Prize competition.

Drive-by shootings and murders, spectacular and often deadly fires in slum dwellings, failing schools, greedy public officials, South Paterson as the neighborhood that harbored 9/11 hijackers -- every negative has been exploited by The Record's editors to sell papers.

Today, Page 1 screams about "shocking ... blood and cruelty" after two people were arrested for running a dog-fighting ring and 21 pit bulls were rescued by Paterson's John DeCando, North Jersey's most-visible animal control officer (A-1).

Race based?

Another front-page story today doesn't discuss the racial makeup of Ramapo, N.Y., where Ford Motor Co. has been ordered to remove "almost all of the toxic paint sludge" the automaker dumped there decades ago, in contrast to a plan to cap much more Ford waste a few miles away in Ringwood. (A-1).

Readers have no way of knowing whether the Rockland County, N.Y., town is being treated differently than the Upper Ringwood neighborhood, because of discrimination against mixed-race Ramapoughs who live in the North Jersey community.

GWB scandal

Readers who have called on The Record and other media "to move on" and stop writing about the George Washington Bridge scandal were greeted by another front-page story today that explores for the first time lawyer David Samson's influence in the Christie administration (A-1).

Samson has been called a mentor and father figure to Governor Christie, who named the lawyer chairman of the Port Authority, where he ran interference for clients of his law firm, Wolff & Samson.

The powerful lawyer is among members of Christie's inner circle who resigned in the wake of allegations of political retribution against Democrats in the months before last November's election.

Christ and potholes

The Local section today manages to wrap up in a single story Easter, the suffering of Christ and how an actor injured himself on a Paterson pothole that hasn't been repaired weeks after the end of a brutal winter (L-1).

Why does it take a Good Friday procession to get the editors to dramatize the danger of all of those still-gaping potholes on streets and highways in North Jersey? 

Second looks

The Record's lazy local-news editors ran a Page 1 story on Thursday, praising Hackensack Police Officer Victor Vazquez for saving the life of an elderly woman, arresting a suspect in a violent robbery and assisting in the arrest of two drug suspects on Route 80.

But the story wasn't based on original reporting. 

Jerry DeMarco's CliffviewPilot.com ran a piece on the cop's exploits two days earlier. 

Meanwhile, a concerned reader e-mailed managers and editors of The Record, reporting that Road Warrior John Cichowski "confused and misled readers in his Sunday and Tuesday columns about the dangers, state regulations and a recent crackdown on driving while talking or texting on handheld cellphones."

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers, which chronicles all of the befuddled reporter's many errors in these and past columns:

More errors on a familiar Road Warrior theme

Facts can't curb out-of-control Road Warrior

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In the court of public opinion, Christie is still guilty

Borough Hall in Fort Lee, where George Washington Bridge lane closures caused four days of traffic chaos in early September. The lane closures were ordered by Governor Christie's aides, allegedly to punish Mayor Mark Sokolich, one of the Democrats who refused to endorse the GOP bully for a second term.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

On the Bridgegate scandal, the court of public opinion has been unwavering:

Governor Christie knew that members of his inner circle were lashing back at Democrats who refused to endorse the GOP bully for a second term in the election last November.

In Democratic Fort Lee, that political retribution took the form of lane closures at the George Washington Bridge, resulting in four days of traffic chaos.

Probe setback

Today's front-page news in The Record -- that a state judge won't force two former Christie aides to turn over documents (A-1) -- won't change the public's opinion about the governor.

A Charles Stile column on the future of the legislative panel investigating the lane closures uses a number of silly plays on words, such as saying the committee is "itself jammed at a crossroads" (A-1).

How awkward.

Subpoena Christie

The head of the panel, Assemblyman John Wisniewski, calls the lane closures a "threat to public safety and abuse of government power."

And nowhere in the column or the news story on Page 1 is there any mention of whether the legislative panel or a separate probe by the U.S. attorney in Newark will subpoena Christie.

Since the scandal exploded in January, the governor has never spoken under oath about what he knew and when he knew it.

Wouldn't it be rich to see the former corruption-busting federal prosecutor hiding behind the Fifth Amendment?

More bad news

The really bad news on today's front page is Standard & Poor's downgrading New Jersey's credit rating, while blasting Christie for lagging behind many states with "sizable budgetary surpluses" (A-1).

Three more corrections appear on A-2 today, testament to six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton's inattention to detail.

Christie's environmental record continues to take a hit with word he denied 5% raises to members of the Pinelands Commission, which split, 7-7, on a plan to build a natural gas pipeline through the protected reserve (A-4).

A lobbying firm hired to push the project was headed by David Samson, former chairman of the Port Authority and a Bridgegate character, who has been called a mentor and father figure to Christie.

Is there a public agency anywhere that hasn't been infected by Christie's politics and cronyism?

(201) magazine

Restaurant reviews are considered so important at (201) magazine they are entrusted to a low-paid editorial assistant, which is a publisher's title for "clerk" or guy/gal who answers the phone.

In a Bergen County Dining Guide in the April 2014 (201) family, Ryan Greene says ramen is "trendy as all heck in New York."

He also wanted to say the pork in Santouka Ramen's noodle soup melted in his mouth, but a word was dropped and it came out "melt-in-your-pork."

In the April 2014 (201) magazine, his review of Cafe Matisse in Rutherford ends this way, "Every dish is art. Every bite is beauty."

No prices appear in the review, and it isn't clear whether (201) magazine pays for Greene's meals, as The Record does for Staff Writer Elisa Ung.

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Christie may be lying about GWB lane closures

In all of his self-serving statements about the early September George Washington Bridge lane closures in Fort Lee, above, Governor Christie has never spoken under oath. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The latest developments in the Bridgegate scandal could be a modern spin on the Biblical story of "Samson and De Liar."

"Samson" is Governor Christie's hand-picked Port Authority chairman, David Samson, a powerful New Jersey lawyer who has been called a father figure and mentor to the GOP bully.

After Samson was named to the unsalaried position, his law firm saw a significant increase in fees from lobbying and legal work for developers, NJ Transit and others, WNYC-FM and The Record have reported. 

Christie whitewash

But a day after an "internal" review supposedly cleared Christie of any wrongdoing in the George Washington Bridge lane closures, his Friday news conference brought us no closer to the truth about whether he is "de liar" in everything he's said -- none of it under oath (A-1).

In fact, an "ANALYSIS" on Page 1 today reports "many documents [in the 300-page report] appear to lend at least some credence" to the allegations against Christie (A-1).

Sacrificial officials

Samson resigned Friday, becoming at least the sixth official to take the fall for the governor, whose claim of being lied to by a vindictive staff just doesn't ring true.

The staffer who should resign is Christie's foul-mouthed chief press spokesman, former Star-Ledger reporter Michael Drewniak, a real low-life who made derogatory references to reporters and newspapers covering the scandal.

In reference to Christie's onetime Port Authority crony David Wildstein, Drewniak (rhymes with "maniac") threatened to "claw his eyes out, pour gasoline in the sockets and light them up" (A-6).

But the story and report do not provide any context for the threat.

Wildstein says he told Christie at a 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan about the lane closures as they were happening.

Political payback

Also hard to swallow is the report's claim that Christie "did not create a culture of political retaliation" against Democrats in Fort Lee, Hoboken and Jersey City who refused to endorse his bid for a second term last November.

Let's remember the internal review was led by prominent Republican lawyer Randy Mastro, a $1,000-an-hour practitioner who worked at a discount for Christie, but still managed to roll up a $1 million legal bill to choke taxpayers.

Critics aplenty

The lawyer for Bridget Anne Kelly, who sent the "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" e-mail as Christie's deputy chief of staff, blasted the report:

"The report's venomous, gratuitous and inappropriate sexist remarks concerning Ms. Kelly have no place in what is alleged to be a professional and independent report," attorney Michael Critchley said (A-1).

Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer says she's willing to go under oath and repeat her claims that Christie officials threatened Sandy aid money to her city.

The report, she said Thursday, is "a one-sided whitewash of serious misconduct by the Christie administration" that was "sadly predictable" (A-1 on Friday).

That says it all.

Photo puzzle

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza continues to rely on accident photos and captions that provide no real information to readers, but do fill out his thin local news report (L-1).

A story on five people arrested last Sunday in an assault on a Palisades Park parking attendant is missing information on whether the victim worked for a restaurant, bank or other business (L-2).

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Hackensack officials deal more blows to taxpayers

A photo taken today of filled potholes on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack. On Monday, "Eye on The Record" published a photo from Feb. 26, below, and reported incorrectly that no potholes had been repaired on the street in the Fairmount section. However, Prospect Avenue, one of the city's premier streets, remains a disaster along almost its entire length between Euclid Avenue and Essex Street, and other potholes on Euclid weren't repaired as of this morning.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Instead of urging residents to recycle more, Hackensack officials have announced that twice-a-week garbage collection will start on March 17.

The e-mail from the city's official Web site doesn't say why once-a-week garbage collection is being doubled, how much it will cost and whether the city's already high property taxes will increase as a result.

"Recycling and rubbish collection will remain the same," the e-mail says. 

Who wants this?

I am sure I am not alone among Hackensack residents in saying once-a-week garbage collection is plenty.

As it is, I don't put out garbage for collection ever week, even though we prepare meals five to six days a week.

We have two disposals in our sinks, but would like to see the city collect food scraps for composting, which would be far better than increasing garbage collection.

I actually have to hold back recyclables -- paper, cardboard, bottles and cans -- which also are picked up curbside, and I recycle plastic bags and food wrapping and packaging at ShopRite.

Smelly garbage

I recall attending City Council meetings where residents of one ward complained their garbage smelled during the summer, and asked for twice-a-week collection.

The city didn't survey residents in other wards on whether they, too, wanted more garbage collection.

Hackensack is the most populous community in Bergen County, but it also is one of the most inefficient in terms of using renewable energy or adding hybrid and electric cars to its fleet.

Main Street app

The city seems to be largely influenced by property owners who belong to the Upper Main Street Alliance, a public-private group that is hoping to score big from downtown redevelopment.

Today, The Record reports the alliance has unveiled a free Main Street app, the first in the state (L-3), but the paper doesn't say the app ignores many merchants and restaurants outside of the alliance's arbitrary zone.

Much of the city's redevelopment is taking the form of luxury apartments, and one building going up on State Street won a big tax break from the city, shifting the burden to homeowners. 

Tax-exempt property

Another reason property taxes are so high is the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax-exempt property owned by Hackensack University Medical Center, Bergen County and Fairleigh Dickinson University. 

With Mayor John Labrosse, a hospital employee, in control, the city is in no hurry to ask HUMC to give back in lieu of taxes on at least $180 million in property that pays absolutely nothing, despite all the city services the hospital uses.

For example, the hospital could pave Prospect Avenue, which rocks patients in ambulances heading for the emergency room; or buy new cruisers for the city Police Department.

$78,000 mouthpiece

Labrosse and fellow members of Citizens for Change were swept into office last May, then chose Thom Ammirato, their campaign manager, as the city's chief spokesman, paying him an outrageous $78,000 a year, not $65,000, as I wrote earlier.

As a full-time employee of Bergen County, Ammirato won't be supporting in-kind contributions from the tax-exempt county, either.

Page 1 today

Transportation reporter Karen Rouse has written far more about NJ Transit service problems encountered by Super Bowl fans on one day February than she has in the previous decade about long-suffering commuters (A-1).

On the continuation page (A-6), the photo caption is wrong in describing fans "outside MetLife Stadium."

The photo clearly shows a platform at the transfer station in Secaucus, where the copy editor who wrote the wrong caption and everyone else who worked on the story obviously have never been.

Why is a story on winter snowstorms boosting business at carwashes on the front page today (A-1)? What's next -- a boost in the dry cleaning business?

Does anybody care which federal prosecutors -- in New York or New Jersey -- try to take down Port Authority Chairman David Samson, Governor Christie's crony (A-1)?

The powerful law firm headed by Samson has seen its lobbying and legal business skyrocket since Christie named him to the unsalaried position, and businesses he represents have benefited from his official actions.

Local yokels

Today's Local section brings more Passaic County news to Bergen County readers (L-2 and L-3).

Readers confused by Sunday's Road Warrior column reporting both an increase and a decline in pedestrian deaths were not alone, as this e-mail to managers and editors shows:

"In his Sunday column, the Road Warrior embarrasses himself by mistakenly advocating both sides of the argument that New Jersey pedestrian deaths have generally risen over the past decade and have generally fallen over the past decade based on his own made-up and cherry picked information.

"He spent most of his column indicating that pedestrian fatalities rose in the past decade since they went from 138 in 2003 to 163 in 2012.

"He then indicated that pedestrian fatalities fell in the past decade since they went from 176 in 2002 to 132 in 2013.

"To make matters even more absurd, he tried to do this while still misstating New Jersey State Police road fatality statistics for this time period that are readily available to him online.

"Road Warrior indicated that 132 pedestrians were killed in 2013 in New Jersey – 'the lowest yearly number since state police began keeping accurate counts in the 1970s.'"

"However, state police fatality statistics show there were only 130 pedestrian deaths in 2001." 

See the full e-mail on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior credibility continues to fall

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Editors unearth governors' 2011 toll-hike fakery

In a royal F.U. to readers, The Record continues to make excuses for the slow pace of pothole repairs on streets and highways, including Hackensack's Euclid Avenue, above. Today, Road Warrior John Cichowski bores readers with a tedious explanation of why the New Jersey portion of the Palisade Interstate Parkway is "a joke," in the words of one driver. And an editorial claims quicker repairs would "stretch local and state budgets even further."

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

In 2011, many commuters suspected Governor Christie did little to prevent outrageous toll hikes on crossings operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, over which he has veto power.

Now -- nearly 31 months later -- The Record has unearthed "a secretive campaign" by Christie's cronies on the bi-state agency to inflate the proposed toll hikes so that the GOP bully and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo could appear to be heroes by scaling it back (A-1 and A-6).

"Toll hike's secret story" is the headline over this elaborate game of catch-up, even though Christie showed himself to be North Jersey commuters' worst nightmare by killing the Hudson River rail tunnels in October 2010.

Localizing Oscar

It's refreshing to see a different take on the media's Oscar hysteria in The Record's intimate Page 1 glimpse inside the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood.

Of course, Staff Writer Jay Levin, the local obituary writer, also managed to gather material about actor Earle Hyman and others  residents he will likely be using when he summarizes their accomplishments after they die (A-1).

From light to dark

Road Warrior John Cichowski is back with another unbelievably long column about potholes today (L-1), without acknowledging all of the errors and exaggerations in his previous effort on Thursday's front page.

"In fact, the Road Warrior [who claimed to have driven 300 miles looking for problems] simply regurgitated his same old list of pothole-ridden roads that he reports on every year, including Route 4, Palisades Intestate Parkway, Starke Road, and West Railway Avenue," a concerned reader said in an e-mail to editors and managers.

Cichowski said West Railway Avenue in Paterson is six blocks long, when it is, in fact, 11 blocks long.

Click on the following link to read about the other flaws in his column on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior lost in sinkhole of error

No accident

Today's Local section is another fine effort from Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, including a new, non-fatal accident photo on L-3 -- a stock space filler.

This is the third photo in about a week where a door was removed to free a driver, but otherwise, readers are kept in the dark on the identity of the drivers who received summonses or the cause of the collision in Ridgewood.

Two more columns

Today's Opinion cover includes two columns about Governor Christie and David Samson, his appointee to the unsalaried though powerful job of Port Authority chairman (O-1).

The Mike Kelly column on Christie uses the same dated thumbnail photo of the veteran reporter --complete with the shit-eating grin -- that has turned off readers for years. 

Laughable editorial

 The lame pothole editorial on O-2 is infuriating to property owners who see their local taxes increase every year, only to be inconvenienced and even endangered by half-assed snow removal and pothole repair.

"Potholes really are one of those frustrating problems that are beyond blame -- except for the vagaries of the weather," the editorial claims.

What can you expect from a newspaper that never assesses blame for, among other things:

• All of the errors in Road Warrior John Cichowski's column. 

• The lack of local news from Sforza, the lazy, incompetent deputy assignment editor.

• And all of the sloppy editing, typos and factual errors in news stories that sail by a production staff headed by Liz Houlton, who is paid six figures? 

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Christie pal David Samson is the wolf at the door

The Record says Port Authority Chairman David Samson "has faced scrutiny in the wake of the scandal involving the September lane closures at the George Washington Bridge," above, in what is being called Bridgegate for short.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The Record publishes a detailed story today on the boom in public lobbying and legal work at David Samson's law firm after Governor Christie named him to the powerful post of Port Authority chairman.

The Page 1 account goes over a lot of the same ground as earlier reporting by New Jersey Public Radio (WNYC-FM).

Samson is head of Wolff & Samson, the West Orange law firm whose clients have included some of the biggest corporate names in New Jersey, plus NJ Transit, PSE&G and South Jersey Gas.

Samson, a former state attorney general, also was legal counsel to Christie's 2009 campaign and led the GOP bully's transition team.

Political arm

Now, he is helping turn the bi-state patronage mill known as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey into a political arm of the Christie administration.

If closing two of three local-access lanes to the bridge was payback to Fort Lee's Democratic mayor, who didn't endorse Christie for reelection last year, the resulting gridlock sheds light on other administration decisions.

Middle-class commuters suffered when Christie killed the Hudson River rail tunnels, which would have been the biggest expansion of transit service in decades.

Christie grabbed leftover federal money held by NJ Transit and the Port Authority to repair roads in New Jersey, allowing him to keep his conservative pledge not to raise taxes, in this case the low gasoline tax.

Tolls and fees

And not only did Christie rubber-stamp huge toll hikes at the Port Authority's Hudson River crossings, he hasn't brought any pressure on the agency to expand its PATH commuter rail system or bus operations (A-11), despite increasing traffic congestion.

Expanding mass transit would ease traffic, but deny the Port Authority some of the crucial toll revenue that sustains the transportation behemoth, along with port and airport fees.

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Cowardly columnists, sloppy editing and potholes

A pothole on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, where I haven't seen any crews repairing pockmarked streets that bend car wheels and blow out tires, and have drivers cursing their public officials.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Why is Columnist Charles Stile wasting readers' time today by examining what Governor Christie said as long ago as 2011, but never saying whether he thinks the GOP bully is lying about his role in the Bridgegate scandal?

That's what readers want from a columnist for The Record -- an opinion, a point of view, an accusation based on the seasoned Trenton reporter's experience dealing with public officials.

Instead, the best Stile can do is say "Christie's credibility -- and his career -- are in the shadow of a scandal" (A-1).

This "scandal" thing is a variation of what he wrote in his boring column on Friday: 

"Recast by scandal as a bully whose aides closed off part of the George Washington Bridge as a political revenge plot...." 

He's no Breslin

Of course, it's Stile's credibility that is on the line, along with the credibility of the paper's other columnists, including Road Warrior John Cichowski and Mike Kelly, who can't muster any strong opinions, either.

Instead of condemning municipal crews' half-assed job of snow removal and pothole repair in the region, Cichowski's column on Thursday delved into fantasy, based on a single driver's comment:

“'It seems like every street corner has snow piles up to the heavens, making it impossible to turn onto any street.'

"Yet," a concerned reader noted, "there were no reports of regionwide or local traffic gridlock, if it really was 'impossible to turn onto any street.'

"The Road Warrior’s column predicted that 'current accumulations are likely to keep streets narrow and dangerous for weeks' due to freezing temperatures, even though four straight days of temperatures in the 50s and three days of rain would melt a lot of the snow."

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers by clicking on the following link:

Road Warrior puts up factual roadblocks 

Good for transit

What is the big deal about leasing a North Bergen park-and-ride lot to NJ Transit for $1 a year, even if the agency was a client of lawyer David Samson, chairman of the Port Authority (A-1 on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and today)?

NJ Transit is the state's mass-transit agency -- not a profit-making company -- and in giving up $900,000 in revenue from the lot in 2012, the Port Authority was, in effect, making a contribution to the viability of public transit and helping to ease traffic congestion.

The bi-state agency is supported by fees and tolls, not taxes, and operates the PATH commuter rail system, owns hundreds of buses used by NJ Transit and others, and runs the reverse express bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.

No question

Today's Page 1 story by Staff Writer Shawn Boburg actually reports Samson "has been the focus of questions about whether clients of his law firm benefited from his public position."

"Whether"? 

Weeks ago, National Public Radio (WNYC-FM) reported lobbying and legal work boomed at Samson's law firm after Christie named him chairman of the Port Authority.

Those clients know a good thing when they see it -- their lawyer at the pinnacle of power.  

Wasting our time

The front of Local today carries another Road Warrior column -- this one about drivers who run  stop signs at a traffic circle in the Bergen County backwater of Franklin Lakes (L-1).

Drivers run stop signs everywhere. Why waste an entire column on this spot? 

What about an epidemic of speeding and aggressive driving, and the dramatic decline in the enforcement of traffic laws on highways and in many towns.

Why not report on Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga's crackdown on traffic violations? 

Sloppy editing

Also on the Local front today is a beautifully written local obituary for Sidney Kronish, who lived to 101, with an inexplicable flaw in the first paragraph:

"Rozanne Zweig addressed the mourners as she stood aside [italics added] her boyfriend's simple pine coffin."

Shouldn't that be "beside" or "next to" the coffin? Where were the assignment, news and copy editors who went over this obituary? Were they asleep at their computers?

Silence is golden

On the Opinion front, Carl Golden, a former Record reporter who was press secretary to two Republican governors, discusses the stresses of a job now held by Mike Drewniak, Governor Christie's discredited chief spokesman (O-1).

Golden doesn't explain why Drewniak, a former Star-Ledger reporter in Trenton, has such a foul mouth or why he cursed and belittled former colleagues who were looking into the Bridgegate scandal.

Drewniak has laid low in the weeks since his expletive-filled e-mails emerged, and no one has reported whether it is a coincidence his last name rhymes with "maniac."

Jets v. residents

The Business front cover story on increased private-jet activity at Teterboro Airport is a royal F.U. to residents of Teaneck, Hackensack and other towns who are kept awake by all of those noisy planes (B-1).

Nor does it report that Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg is the filthy rich co-owner of one of the unregulated private jets that seem to be screaming overhead day and night. 

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For commuters, no real change at NJ Transit

A bus broke down this morning in the Route 495 express lane to the Lincoln Tunnel, delaying commuters aboard hundreds of Manhattan-bound buses, above, including NJ Transit riders standing in the aisles. The Port Authority has ignored calls to add a second express bus lane into the city, and The Record's lazy editors and reporters have taken no notice.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Dozens of commuters who couldn't find a seat on an NJ Transit train between Secaucus and New York's Penn Station were probably cursing Jim Weinstein on Wednesday morning.

Weinstein announced he will be leaving his job as executive director of NJ Transit on March 2, The Record reported on Wednesday (A-1).

But Weinstein, who is another of Governor Christie's many cronies, failed in his job long before Superstorm Sandy, when hundreds of rail cars and locomotives were destroyed, and the Super Bowl, when thousands of fans waited hours for trains.

Ignoring commuters

For years -- in a story The Record has never bothered to tell -- NJ Transit has been unable to provide a rush-hour seat for every commuter or guarantee their on-time arrival.

Why The Record's editors and reporters immediately went to bat for Super Bowl fans after years of ignoring North Jersey commuters is a question only the Woodland Park newsroom can answer.

The assignment editors and reporters don't seem to think they have anything in common with their readers who commute by bus or train.

In fact, Editor Marty Gottlieb and his many underlings appear to have contempt for readers who use mass transit, judging by the lack of coverage in the paper, especially in the Road Warrior column.

Drivers engage in the daily ritual of crawling down Route 495 to the entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel. This morning, a trip by car from Clifton to lower Manhattan took an agonizing 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Sky high salaries

Weinstein is being paid "upward of $261,000 a year," compared to Christie's $175,000, The Record reported.

He will be replaced at NJ Transit by Ronnie Hakim, another one of the governor's many cronies, who is in line for a $90,00o raise when she leaves the New Jersey Turnpike Authority -- by far the most expensive toll road in the tri-state area.

She now gets $174,000-a-year as executive director of the authority, which also runs the Garden State Parkway.

Early Alzheimer's

Meanwhile, Road Warrior John Cichowski finally emerges from hibernation to report on the challenges in the wake of last Thursday's nor'easter, which dropped 12 inches to 18 inches of snow on North Jersey (A-1 today).

The befuddled Cichowski doesn't have the courage to criticize state and municipal snow-removal crews for the half-assed job they did of clearing streets and highway ramps, and repairing potholes.

I also don't see any mention in his column today of pedestrians forced to put themselves in harm's way by walking in the street because of sidewalks and crosswalks still buried under snow.

The idiotic editors run a Page 1 photo today that tells readers nothing about the dangers of merging into high-speed traffic on highways when a mound of snow blocks the driver's vision or the acceleration lane suddenly disappears.

The mound of snow in the image blocks the view of the photographer (!!!), not the driver of the van shown merging onto Route 17 north in Upper Saddle River (A-1). 

Asylum's inmates

A news story and column on Page 1 today are about David Samson, the head of a powerful law firm who Christie named chairman of the patronage mill also known as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Check out the dated, unflattering column photo of Mike Kelly, whose shit-eating grin seems to undermine just about anything he has to say (A-1).

Burned-out Columnists Kelly and Cichowski appear to be just two of the patients in the newsroom's asylum.

A homeless man on the No. 2 train in Manhattan today had two hand trucks loaded with his belongings.

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Finally, here is Super Bowl news to celebrate

Miller's N.J. Ale House on Route 4 in Paramus didn't call Fish for a seafood delivery. Imagine the possibilities: Bully Beef Building Maintenance, Pork Barrel Electricians and Lamb & Lion Plumbers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

If you can survive the boring front-page Tara Sullivan column on an assistant pro football coach with the improbable last name of "Studesville," there is really big Super Bowl news in The Record today.

Woody Johnson, the filthy rich owner of the Jets, who play in New Jersey but refuse to drop New York from their name, says it would be at least a decade before we could possibly see another Super Bowl in the Garden State (L-1).

First "Studesville," which sounds like "Studsville," and then "Woody," undoubtedly a phallic reference.

Isn't that grand? A respite of 10 whole years before the vast majority of readers have to wade through all this upbeat crap about pro football in every section of the Woodland Park daily.

In the interim, readers can only hope The Record does a little tougher reporting on wealthy team owners' response to compensating football players for all of the brain injuries they suffer (A-8 editorial). 

Mass hysteria

Let's hope the Page 1 "expose" about Port Authority Chairman David Samson's ties to a luxury apartment development doesn't derail a $256 million reconstruction of a nearby PATH station in Harrison that he approved (A-1).

The PATH project would be one of the few improvements in a commuter-rail system that has languished under the Port Authority's well-known anti-mass transit policies -- a story The Record won't touch.

More Bridgegate

A Page 1 Charles Stile column and an A-3 story on the legislative probe round out today's Bridgegate scandal package.

Everyone involved seems to have received subpoenas except Governor Christie himself (A-3).

In his usual awkward style, Stile says Christie's staffers "have been hit with subpoenas" and the governor "has been served a heavy dose of comeuppance."

We also learn Christie "stormed into Trenton four years ago vowing to follow the advice of his 'tough as nails' Sicilian mother" that it is better to be feared than loved.

Still, Stile won't call Christie a "GOP bully," the name he has earned just about everywhere else.

But his Sicilian mother also must have given young Chris a love for pizza.

He became as soft as lard, if you believe the governor's claim he knew nothing about his staff plotting in early September to close George Washington Bridge local access lanes in Democratic Fort Lee.


Mahwah tax cut?

On the Local front, Mahwah residents who opposed a 600,000-square-foot shopping center at Routes 17, 287 and 87 were decades late in citing "traffic, environmental and quality-of-life issues" (L-1).

And given all the nincompoops elected or appointed to run Mahwah and every other home-rule town in North Jersey, residents probably can't even expect any property tax relief when the project is completed.

Lots of questions

An L-2 story about a bank robbery doesn't explain why Valley National Bank on Dean Street in Englewood had $66,000 in its vault. 

Was it expecting a run on the bank or laundering large amounts of cash from illegal activities?

Another story on L-2 doesn't say Paterson laid off police officers in 2011 after Christie cut aid to poor cities, leading to a rise in crime in an already violent community.

The only photo of Christie in the paper today appears on  L-3, where he is seen trying to overcome his love for pizza in a table tennis game at the Boys & Girls Club of Newark.

Who won?

You won't find the outcome in the story or the 
photo caption.

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