Column on highway 'miracle' is no help for commuters

The commute by car through the Lincoln Tunnel, above, and on NJ Transit trains and buses, below, hasn't gotten any easier in the year or more since these photos were taken. In the past decade, The Record has done little to dramatize highway congestion or crowded mass transit, allowing its lazy transportation reporters and columnist to steer coverage. See today's overlong Road Warrior column on a man who picks up litter near highway off-ramps. 

Standing room only on an old rail car pressed into service after Superstorm Sandy.

As especially hellish Friday night commute at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Let's hear it for Benny Gonzales, a disabled Paterson man who picks up litter near highway ramps and returns wallets and other valuables discarded by thieves, as reported today on The Record's Local front (L-1).

But this feel-good column by Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski won't do anything to improve the hellish weekday commute of tens of thousands of drivers and mass-transit users who live in North Jersey.

This month, Cichowski is celebrating his 11th year as Road Warrior columnist. He is perhaps the laziest transportation reporter The Record has ever had.

A close second would be Dan Sforza, the deputy local assignment editor who, as the transporation reporter, ignored NJ Transit's then-new fleet of defective commuter buses.

Their screeching rear brakes and noisy engines awoke people who lived on residential routes, including Queen Anne Road in Teaneck and Grand Avenue in Englewood.

When the problem was brought to Sforza's attention, he shrugged, and went back to researching stories on "highways of the future."

Fuzzy reporting

Today, Cichowski incorrectly calls the grass near ramps for Routes 19 and 80 "medians." 

He refers to Gonzalez's litter patrol and honesty as "a 21st-century miracle."

Of course, a real miracle would be Cichowski acting as an effective commuting columnist -- without committing hundreds of errors.

Front page

Page 1 today doesn't have a single hard-news story from any town, Bergen and Passaic counties or the state.

'GWB affair'

On the Opinion front, Carl Golden, a former press aide to two Republican governors, writes about the current Republican governor and what the writer refers to as "the GWB affair" and "the GWB episode."

Golden calls them "a reference to all manner of alleged or genuine misbehavior -- abuse of government power, political retribution, conflicts of interest, insider deals, personal financial gain, ethical breaches and involvement of administration staffers in campaign work" (O-1).

But as you would expect with a longtime GOP loyalist, Golden doesn't venture an opinion on Christie's involvement in the Fort Lee lane closures last September.

Golden shares this flaw with other opinion columnists for the Woodland Park daily, including Charles Stile and Mike Kelly. 

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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?

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To Christie and pals, we're all a bunch of outsiders

Today's Hackensack Chronicle reports that on Feb. 18, the mayor and council discussed forming a "snow committee," presumably to address buried bus stops, such as the one on Anderson Street, above, and two-way streets that allow only one car to pass, such as Euclid Avenue, near Main Street, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

There's been a lull in the action since the explosive e-mail -- "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" -- blew open the investigation of George Washington Bridge lane closures and the resulting gridlock in early September.

Now, The Record reports on Page 1 today, newly released messages between Governor Christie's aide and his crony on the Port Authority make a New Jersey rabbi the butt of jokes.

No closer to truth

In August, Bridget Anne Kelly, then-Christie's deputy chief of staff, joked with then-Port Authority executive David Wildstein about causing "traffic problems" at the home of the rabbi, who is the Port Authority's police chaplain, and delaying flights to Tel Aviv.

Readers can plow through thousands of words in today's paper and come no closer to an understanding of whether Christie was aware members of his inner circle were using traffic and Sandy aide as tools to exact political revenge against Democrats.

Brigid Harrison, a political science professor and opinion columnist for The Record, is quoted today as saying the jokes again highlight "a culture of arrogance" that "reflects poorly on the Christie administration" (A-1).

We're outsiders

But the messages also reveal that everyone -- from Democratic mayors to middle-class property taxpayers in New Jersey -- have been treated as mere pawns in Christie's grand conservative scheme to wage class warfare.

In a letter to the editor on A-10 today, retired Paterson teacher Patricia Montalto of Little Falls decries Christie's continuing attacks on the pensions of public employees (A-1).

An editorial on A-10 today again demands that Christie call for the resignation of Port Authority Chairman David Samson -- a father figure to the GOP bully -- and all New Jersey commissioners.

"Christie needs to vent the same anger on ... people he put into power that he has at ordinary citizens who have done nothing more than to disagree with him at public forums," the editorial says.

Black church goers

Another Page 1 story today on a dramatic increase in the number of black church parishioners from Africa and the Caribbean is really old news.

The Church of God of Prophecy, a Jamaican-American congregation in Englewood, recently purchased the West Side Presbyterian Church on Demarest Avenue and other buildings, including one housing the Center for Food Action.

Hackensack news

In Hackensack news, The Record continues to report on the arrest during drug sweeps of Charles T. Williams, a convicted child rapist and murderer who may be linked to unsolved killings (L-1).

But at the Hackensack Chronicle, the big news is the possible formation of a "snow committee" in Hackensack.

The story quotes Mayor John Labrosse and interim City Manager Anthony Rotino, but both try mightily to avoid any suggestion the city's Department of Public Works did an awful job removing snow after a series of storms.

Barricaded bus shelters on Summit Avenue in Hackensack.

Euclid Avenue and Main Street in Hackensack after the nor'easter.

Blocked crosswalk at Anderson and Main streets (Sears).

How Hackensack talks

Rottino apparently was rewarded for his loyalty to the Citizens for Change reform slate that was swept into office last year, not for his command of the English language.

Rottino suggests snow removal could be "a little more organized."

But Labross takes the cake for dancing around the need to assess blame:

"When the storm is over and everything has calmed down, you go back and you do an evaluation of how you handled everything -- not to beat anybody up or to back breath down anybody, but to see what we can do better."

Come to think of it, the editors, reporters and the Road Warrior columnist at The Record also were reluctant to assign blame for sloppy snow removal and slow pothole repairs throughout North Jersey.

Ruining seafood

The Oceanaire Seafood Room, a glitzy mall restaurant in Hackensack, inexplicably gets a "Good" rating today from Staff Writer Elisa Ung, even though she calls a $54.95 steak "the biggest rip-off" (BL-16).

Scallops were "stringy," she says, not criticizing the addition of artery clogging cream and "huge chunks of heavenly bacon" ($41.95).

She found the colossal Thai shrimp "rigid," but doesn't say whether they were previously frozen ($38.95)

In another restaurant appraisal filled with poorly prepared food and mixed messages, Ung ends on an upbeat note, giving in to her obsession and praising the desserts.

In all the years she has been reviewing restaurants, the woman has learned nothing about how beef is raised.

She says the 20-ounce rib-eye she calls a rip-off had little flavor and loses points for not being aged or prime -- the fattiest cut.

Of course, it loses the most points for apparently not being raised completely on grass and without harmful animal antibiotics and growth hormones. 

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Major winter dangers finally get some attention

The light went on in the heads of the editors at The Record, which today breaks new ground with stories about driving and walking challenges amid dangerous mounds of snow that face tens of thousands of readers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

I'm hoping a column and a news story on the hazards of winter driving and walking today represent the past and the future of reporting at The Record of Woodland Park. 

The Road Warrior column on the Local front is more of the same old hand-wringing over the hazards of roof snow that Staff Writer John Cichowski has been peddling for more than a decade, even though the problem affects a minority of drivers (L-1).

If past columns are any guide, Cichowski bases this lame effort on e-mails from drivers and telephone interviews with police chiefs.

Real legwork

But the L-1 news story by Staff Writer Christopher Maag is based on legwork:

Visits to Trader Joe's on Route 17, where piles of snow blinded drivers trying to leave the parking lot and blend into fast-moving traffic; downtown Hackensack, where a pedestrian had to climb over a car-high hill of ice on all fours; and other places where driving and walking are a challenge.

"'This is scary,' said Eboni Rodgers, the driver trying to leave Trader Joe's lot. 'It's ridiculous.'"

"'My God, this is terrible,' said Fred Ball, 58, as he escaped the traffic on Main Street in Hackensack .... 'There is no place to drive. There's no place to walk. It's havoc.'"

Major omission

Maag's story breaks new ground for The Record, but the Page 1 takeout on mounting traffic congestion in Fort Lee -- home to the George Washington Bridge -- lets state officials off the hook for a pathetically weak mass-transit system.

In fact, mass transit isn't even mentioned -- an understandable omission for a newspaper whose survival depends on page after page of car-dealer advertising.

Can you imagine the traffic relief, if NJ Transit's light-rail line was extended north to Fort Lee or officials had the foresight to run a rail line across the lower level of the bridge, affectionately known as Martha Washington?

Crappy hot dogs

The Corner Table column from Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung actually tries to sell readers on the notion that Sabrett hot dogs -- filled with preservatives and mystery meat -- are "gourmet" food truck fare (A-1). 

What a joke. This is just Ung prostituting herself to promote the "Food Truck Mash-Up event last July" that was sponsored by a division of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record (A-11).

Borg's personal stamp

Really, what can you expect from Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who isn't above wrapping Page 1 in advertising, such as today's gallery of Weichert real estate agents?

That only reminds readers of the pathetic Sunday Real Estate section Borg created.

Week after week, the Business editors and staff avoid reporting the many horrors of home ownership -- from greedy banks to record foreclosures to the propensity of something going wrong every day and finding someone to fix it.

No worries 

Borg doesn't worry about any of that, secure in the knowledge he can always get a mortgage from North Jersey Media Group, like the $3.65 million he grabbed in 2007 to buy a McMansion in Tenafly, when his $2 million home became too cramped.

He used a NJMG mortgage to buy that one, too.

Two bits

Another Page 1 story on bitcoin leaves me cold, even if I could understand it (A-1).

Using credit cards may carry identity theft risks, but they also return hundreds and thousands of dollars in cash rebates, airline miles and other rewards.

Fans of Columnist Mike Kelly can catch his photo, complete with an engaging shit-eating grin, twice today, on Page 1 and on the Opinion front (O-1).

The Bridgegate and Governor Christie columns themselves aren't worth reading.

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Christie is at the root of all of those traffic jams

Rush-hour traffic at the Lincoln Tunnel entrance in New Jersey.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The Record has been reporting on The Traffic Jam That Ate Democratic Fort Lee for three months now, but hasn't seemed to notice how Governor Christie's inaction has worsened traffic everywhere in the region.

Today's paper brings a lot of belly aching about the early September gridlock orchestrated by Christie's Trenton aides and Port Authority cronies at the George Washington Bridge (A-1 and L-1).

The befuddled Road Warrior even foams at the mouth about gridlock during a 1971 strike in New York City (L-1).

How can he remember what happened more than 40 years ago, but contradict a column he wrote a few weeks or a few months ago?

Anti-mass transit

Christie's every policy since he took office in January 2010 appears to have worsened traffic and done nothing to improve mass transit.

Killing the Hudson River rail tunnels was bad enough, but then Christie grabbed a couple of billion in leftover tunnel money to repair roads.

The GOP bully put at least three of his cronies in high-paying jobs at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, rubber stamped much higher tolls and ignored the need to expand the PATH commuter rail network and express bus service into Manhattan.

Kelly fails again

Columnist Mike Kelly is wildly inconsistent and his purple prose cries out for editing, as today's piece on the "view from Fort Lee" demonstrates (A-1).

Is "gaze" in the first paragraph the 50th or 51st time he has used that verb in a lead since he started writing columns more than 20 years ago?

The second paragraph merely shuffles around words with little effect, such as "the steep spires of the George Washington Bridge pushed into a weighty curtain of low-hanging clouds."

Since when are clouds "weighty," and what does the description have to do with his report?

That kind of writing has readers gazing at the shit-eating grin in his column photo.

Local front

Staff Writer John Cichowski's rambling Road Warrior column is no winner, either.

Also on the Local front today, Bergen County Democrats could better spend their time getting their own corrupt house in order than in criticizing Republican County Executive Kathleen Donovan for gridlock in Fort Lee (L-1).

This really stinks

The Better Living front carries one of the worst headlines I've seen in months -- an awkward play on words to describe a woman who left the fashion industry to develop her family's online seafood market (BL-1):

The fish-ionista

But the story is even weaker, failing to report on whether the pricey salmon or other seafood sold by ShopFresh is wild caught or farmed raised.

The latter raises the potential use of artificial color (salmon), antibiotics and preservatives.

And why give all this publicity to an online market that charges more than $15 a pound for "Canadian salmon," plus $9.95 for shipping, when there is an abundance of pristine wild seafood offered by Whole Foods Market, Costco Wholesale and other North Jersey retailers?

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'Bridgegate' won't be over until the fat guy sings

The owner of an expensive SUV risks a ticket by parking illegally around the corner from the post office in Hackensack -- and across the street from police headquarters. Limited parking at meters and glacial service inside the post office combine to make a visit there as unpleasant as possible.  

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

After days of intensive "Bridgegate" coverage, Governor Christie's State of the State address this afternoon was full of anticlimax.

Christie spent only a few moments on the lane-closure scandal, noting the past week had "tested this administration."

"We let the people down," the GOP bully said, adding he will cooperate in the multiple inquiries into what he called a "breach of trust."

But he vowed the investigations won't be allowed to delay the work of his second term.

"I am the leader of this state and its people," he said firmly.

He used the word "bipartisan" a half-dozen times or so, but didn't mention any of his first-term vetoes. 

Boring.

Today's paper

The Record today delivered another wave of stories, columns and letters to the editor on the Christie administration plot to tie up traffic at the Fort Lee end of the George Washington Bridge in early September (A-1, A-5, A-6, A-8 and A-9).

The package is poorly edited.

On Page 1, the lead story on the state Legislature's investigative panels asks "whether the action was ordered to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for not endorsing" Christie's reelection campaign.

On A-5, Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, finally recalls being called at least twice last year and asked whether he could ever endorse Christie, a recollection backed up by two colleagues.

And a story on the same page -- reporting a damage lawsuit by cabbies caught in four days of upper-level gridlock -- states "the governor's staff and bridge executives backed up the George Washington Bridge as payback against a political opponent [Sokolich]" (A-5).

Bodies galore

Deputy Assignment Edtor Dan Sforza assembled a Local section filled with sensational news:

A coffin contained the wrong body, a Lodi man was dropped off at a hospital with multiple gunshot wounds and a young Leonia man was killed in the collapse of a Philadelphia apartment fire escape (L-1 and L-3).

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Christie: Vindictive leader or totally in the dark?

Fort Lee Borough Hall, where Governor Christie apologized to Democratic Mayor Mark Sokolich on Thursday afternoon for four days of politically inspired gridlock at the George Washington Bridge in early September. The visit by Christie and a media flash mob closed streets and caused traffic mayhem in the borough.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Three more pages of Bridgegate coverage in The Record today is missing even an attempt to answer the biggest question at the center of the growing scandal.

Are we to believe that Governor Christie remained in the dark until this week -- despite hundreds of e-mails  circulating among his top aides and cronies at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (A-1, A-6 and A-7)?

Christie, the GOP bully who seems more suited to the roll of vindictive leader, claims he was lied to by a top aide and only learned about the plot to tie up Fort Lee traffic from a media report on Wednesday morning.

A victim?

Syndicated columnist Mark Shields, a commentator on PBS, said Friday night that Christie portrays himself as a "victim" in the Bridgegate scandal.

Shields recalled how Christie, on Aug. 26, 2011, was totally in control when he ordered Jersey shore residents to get the hell off the beach before Hurricane Irene hit.

Now, Shields said, Christie expects us to believe he was "detached, he was disengaged, he didn't know" anything about the plot to cause gridlock as a form of political payback to the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee.

Lack of concern

"He didn't once express real, genuine, authentic Chris Christie concern for the lives of people whose lives were disrupted [by the gridlock]," Shields noted.

Shields called the GWB lane closures "a ruthless act, a cheap political trick."

Don't you wonder why the editors, columnists, reporters and editorial writers at The Record aren't expressing the same concerns?

Another big error

Thanks to another major screw-up by six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, a Bridgegate editorial on A-11 today is a real mess:

The headline and sub-headline are broken -- headline words appear over and under a photo of former Port Authority bigwig David Wildstein -- and text is cut off in mid-sentence at the end (A-11).

Ex-clerk is engaged

In Hackensack news, residents learn Debra Heck, the former city clerk, is the fiancee of school board lawyer and former municipal attorney and prosecutor Richard Salkin, an ally of the Zisa political dynasty (L-3).

The story by Staff Writer Hannan Adely quotes from e-mails by City Councilwoman Rose Greenman, a member of a reform slate that swept the Zisa team out of office this year.

Salkin is now representing Heck, who has said she intends to sue the city, claiming her removal was based on her "perceived political views."

Editors' snow job

In Friday's Hackensack Chronicle, two photos reveal what a terrible job municipal crews did in cleaning up after the Jan. 2 snowstorm.

One shows a pedestrian trying "to figure out how to cross the Anderson Street Bridge [between Hackensack and Teaneck], which was snow and ice covered."

In decades of weather coverage in The Record, I haven't seen a similar photo from any one of the 90 or so towns in the daily's circulation area. 

Gritty and slimy

Yet another restaurant reviewed by Staff Writer Elisa Ung bombs.

What else would you expect from Biggie's in Ramsey, where fresh clams are fried and seafood is served on pizzas or covered in a pink cream sauce (BL-14).

You know the food is just awful when Ung devotes the first third of her review to history, decor and service.

The dessert-obsessed reviewer was even repelled by the "tooth-hurting" peanut butter pie and "slimy" cheesecake. Ouch.

Yet, she doesn't rate it "Poor." Go figure. A waste of money and a waste of our time.

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The Record's claim of a 'scoop' is ringing hollow

A ramp in Fort Lee gives drivers access to the lower level of the George Washington Bridge. It remained open during the four days of gridlock in September caused by a Christie administration plot to close two of the three access lanes to upper-level tollbooths.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Amid all of Governor Christie's apologies and firings on Thursday, The Record claimed it had scooped other media on obtaining the shocking e-mails at the root of the politically inspired traffic gridlock in Fort Lee. 

The Woodland Park daily sent out an e-mail to subscribers with this title: "A look behind The Record's big scoop."

The e-mail boasts:

"As you may know, The Record broke the big story this week linking Governor Christie's office to the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge."

Tip to Borg

The e-mail also provided a link to a Washington Post blog that relates Publisher Stephen A. Borg got a call in early September from a friend who complained, "It was taking me hours to get into New York," and that Borg told Editor Marty Gottlieb, who passed on the tip to the somnolent assignment desk.

Although The Record may have been first with news of the lane closures -- in an error-filled Road Warrior column -- it didn't come close to scooping other media on the e-mail exchange between a top Christie aide and his Port Authority crony, who set the closures into motion.

Times weighed in

On Wednesday morning, the Web sites of The New York Times and The Record broke the news at about the same time that Deputy Chief of Staff Bridget Anne Kelly told David Wildstein, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

And The Times -- Gottlieb's former employer -- was first to report U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman has opened an inquiry into whether any laws were broken by the closures on Sept. 9-13, 2013.

Today, for the second day in a row, The Record devotes its entire front page to the fallout, Christie's 2-hour news conference in Trenton and his pilgrimage to Fort Lee to apologize to his supposed political nemesis, Mark Sokolich, the borough's Democratic mayor.

Looks guilty?

If I didn't know better, the Page 1 photo of Christie parting a sea of news photographers and cameramen looks a lot like a carefully orchestrated "perp walk," when crime suspects are paraded past the media.

But the two state troopers behind the GOP bully are his bodyguards, and I'm wondering if the butch one has trouble separating her duty to Christie and her feelings about his stance against gay marriage (A-1).

From many angles

Today's sidebars include a lame attempt by Columnist Mike Kelly to profile Bridget Anne Kelly, the aide Christie fired (A-7).

Still, the reporter fails to get what everyone wants to read, an interview with the Ramsey native, who was fired and who will forever be called "Bridge" for short.

Is he believable?

The Record even critiques Christie's performance in front of the national and state media (A-8), but nowhere is there a suggestion of what many observers have concluded:

Christie may have been lied to by Kelly and others, as he claims, but isn't it likely he also is lying about what he knew and when he knew it, as he has done so many times since he took office in January 2010?

Recall his lame explanations for breaking his 2009 campaign promise of a property tax cut, dismissing the only African-American on the state's highest court and failing to win $400 million in federal education funds.

Damage control

Today, Columnist Charles Stile, a well-known Christie apologist, traces the damage control evident in the GOP bully's Trenton press conference (A-1).

Stile concludes Christie "failed to come across as someone who is all that eager to get to the bottom of the fiasco."

An A-18 editorial that likely was written or edited by another Christie lover, Alfred P. Doblin, ends this way:

"The longer it takes to get that information [what happened and why], the greater the odds that the governor's apologies will fail to restore the luster of his reputation."

Footnotes

Despite all the coverage of Bridgegate today, The Record missed an obvious angle: 

Street closings and traffic gridlock in Fort Lee caused by Christie's visit to the Art Deco Borough Hall on Main Street, hounded by a media horde.

Today is also the first time we learn anything about Florence Genova, 91, the Fort Lee woman who died on Sept. 9, likely a victim of emergency response delayed by the Christie administration plot to tie up traffic in the borough (A-7).

Readers aren't surprised, being well acquainted with the laziness of Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, who runs the local-news desk so ineptly.

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes' lead Page 1 story today refers to a traffic jam -- "the most Jersey of life's troubles" -- which has "threatened" Christie's "popularity and clout."

But readers have been disappointed for years by how Gottlieb, Sforza and Road Warrior John Cichowski ignore daily traffic gridlock in North Jersey, and the crying need for better mass transit to relieve it.

The ink wasn't dry on Cichowski's Wednesday column when events overtook him and made him sound like the babbling idiot he is reputed to be in the newsroom:

Road Warrior stalls again at the GWB 

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U.S. attorney to open inquiry into GWB lane closures

Drivers stuck in rush-hour traffic on Route 4 east in Paramus on their way to the George Washington Bridge this morning.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Unusually high unemployment and lagging state tax revenues didn't do it. Nor did killing the biggest expansion of mass transit in decades.

Balancing the state budget on the backs of the middle and working classes also didn't disturb editors of The Record of Woodland Park.

No. It took a politically malevolent traffic jam at the Fort Lee end of the George Washington Bridge four months ago to pierce the bubble of invincibility around Governor Christie (A-1).

Christie idolatry

If the GOP bully is "STUCK IN A JAM," as today's Page 1 headline declares, then the editors of The Record were STUCK IN A CHRISTIE RUT.

Those editors -- and reporters Charles Stile, Herb Jackson, Melissa Hayes and other staffers -- are culpable for giving Christie a pass since he took office in January 2010.

They not only overlooked his mean-spirited policies and whether they were good for New Jersey, but they regurgitated all of the governors' marketing ploys -- from his "Reform Agenda" to "Bipartisan Compromise."

Those reporters and editors gave up one of their biggest responsibilities to readers: Challenge authority.

The owner of this Toyota Prius saves lots of money on gasoline, but throws those savings away on higher tolls. Owners of hybrid cars can ask for a Green E-ZPass that automatically gives them off-peak toll discounts, as much as $3 less  at the Hudson River crossings. This Prius has a conventional white E-ZPass.

Christie's apology

This morning in Trenton, Christie told the media he is apologizing to the people of New Jersey and the residents of Fort Lee.

He said he has "terminated the employment" of Bridget Anne Kelly, his deputy chief staff, who had e-mailed Christie pal David Wildstein at the Port Authority that it was "time for traffic problems in Fort Lee."

"Got it," Wildstein replied in the Aug. 13, 2013, exchange of e-mails.

Federal probe

In what many might see as a colossal ass covering, Christie claimed his staff lied to him.

The New York Times Web site reported U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman is expected to announce today that he will open an inquiry into the Sept. 9-12 lane closures in Fort Lee.

Christie, a former U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said he plans to go to Fort Lee today and apologize personally to Mayor Mark Sokolich, a Democrat, for the lane closures from local streets to upper-level tollbooths of the George Washington Bridge.

The governor said he is "stunned by the abject stupidity that was shown here" -- a reference to the closing of those lanes.

Christie said he had no knowledge of the e-mails from Kelly, his deputy chief of staff, to his crony at the bi-state transportation agency.

Wildstein and Bill Baroni, his other appointee to the Port Authority, have already resigned.

The future

It remains to be seen whether Bridgegate will hurt Christie's chances in a 2016 White House race.

But commuters will be stuck with exorbitant tolls and crowded buses and trains for years -- thanks to Christie's short-sighted policies.

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Local weather: Now you see it, now you don't

A Toyota SUV and a Toyota sedan collided on Tuesday afternoon at Euclid Avenue and Linden Street in Hackensack, above and below, at an intersection where drivers often run stop signs.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The record-setting, bone-chilling plunge in temperatures was front-page news on Tuesday, but today, editors of The Record try to hide the local-assignment desk's lackluster coverage.

The lazy assignment editors in the Woodland Park newsroom apparently instructed reporters to stay inside and try to cover the story by telephone (L-1 and L-2).

Cold shoulder

That must why there isn't a single interview with a commuter, such as the dozen people shivering as they waited in line on Tuesday morning on Prospect Avenue in Hackensack for an express bus to Manhattan.

Or a photo of Verizon repairman raising a low-hanging wire outside a home on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack or working outside anywhere else in North Jersey.

Instead, Editor Marty Gottlieb's front page today delivers an astounding three stories on national, state and Bergen County politics (A-1).

At 8:30 on Tuesday morning, the outside temperature in Hackensack and Paramus was a bracing 5 degrees.

More Christie spin

Gottlieb continues to give Page 1 play to Governor Christie's latest B.S., portraying his GOP bullying as "bipartisan compromise."

The story by Staff Writer Patricia Alex, who covers higher education for The Record, isn't much different than past accounts, starting in 2010, that regurgitated Christie's fictional "Reform Agenda," "Jersey Comeback" and "Stronger Than the Storm."

Those political marketing campaigns were designed to hide Christie's war on the middle class, as does the current one, which ignores all of the vetoes he has used to stymie the majority Democrats in the state Legislature.

Perspective

A letter to the editor from Richard Cerbo of Hackensack serves as a counterpoint to a recent story on the city's plan to encourage apartment development downtown in a bid to revive Main Street (A-10).

Cerbo, son of a former mayor, notes "builders, developers, investors and commercial property barons" will benefit most of all.

"That's how business is done, but not once in the story was there any mention  of helping those left out, including the homeless, the unemployed, the elderly and the sick," Cerbo said.

He noted Hackensack already has "an urban feel" and that more development would add more traffic and quicken "the deterioration of the city's quality of life."

Relief for whom?

In a related story, the Hackensack City Council on Tuesday night unveiled a measure offering tax relief to developers and others "who build or make improvements in the 39-block Upper Main Street Rehabilitation Area" (L-1).

The proposal appears designed to benefit members of a public-private partnership called the Upper Main Street Business Alliance who own or have purchased much of the property in the development district, and hope to cash in by selling it to developers.

Hackensack can ill afford to grant tax relief in a city where Hackensack University Medical Center, Bergen County and Fairleigh Dickinson University already own hundreds of millions of dollars in property that pays no property taxes, shifting the burden to homeowners and small businesses.

The Record also reported the hiring of Deborah Karlsson as Hackensack's new city clerk (Tuesday's L-2).

Sky is falling

On the Local front today, the befuddled John Cichowski, in his guise as the Road Warrior, compares the Christie-inspired George Washington Bridge traffic jams in September to:

The 1966 New York City transit strike, the 1969 snowstorm that paralyzed the five boroughs, a Chicago blizzard in 1979 and a Denver snowstorm in 1983 (L-1).

Smoking gun

Today, the Web sites of The New York Times and The Record are reporting the papers obtained e-mails showing that Christie's office was "closely involved," as The Times describes it, in GWB lane closures that caused traffic jams in Fort Lee, where the mayor is a Democrat.

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Bridget Anne Kelly said in an e-mail to David Wildstein, a close friend of Christie's who had been appointed to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Kelly, a deputy chief of staff to Christie, gave the go-ahead for the lane closures about two weeks before they occurred, The Times reported.

Trial by fire

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza -- in an apparent bid to deflect attention from readers' disappointment in local-news coverage -- managed to find a journalist with a real image problem: 

Former Fox 5 reporter Charles Leaf is on trial at the Bergen County Courthouse on charges he sexually abused a 4-year-old girl at his Wyckoff home three years ago (L-3).

Transit column?

Every major newspaper in New York has carried a subway column, but The Record has acted contemptuously toward NJ Transit bus and rail commuters.

In the past decade, the Road Warrior column has been devoted almost exclusively to drivers, and Staff Writer Karen Rouse, another transportation reporter, has never bothered to ride the buses and trains and report on the quality of service.

On Monday's L-3, Rouse reported on the progress of a turnpike widening project between Exits 6 and 9 -- about a hour's drive from Bergen County.

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