Killings of police are rare compared to minority deaths

Traffic is funneled into one lane in each direction during reconstruction of the Route 46 bridge over the Hackensack River, above. Last week, President Obama said as many as 1 million jobs would be created, if Congress authorized the rebuilding of the nation's roads and bridges, compared to a fraction of that number for completion of the Keystone Pipeline.

I was 11th on the line of commuters waiting for NJ Transit's 165 Turnpike Express to Hackensack and Westwood, scheduled to leave the bus terminal in Manhattan at 3:05 last Tuesday afternoon. By the time the bus came, the line doubled back on itself and grew to more than 40. Commuters are sitting on the floor, left, because the Port Authority provides few seats or other creature comforts for them.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

At the end of the long story leading Page 1 of The Record today, wire service reporters note "the last shooting death of an NYPD officer came in December 2011" (A-12).

The hard-luck editors who got stuck working on Saturday just slapped The Associated Press story into the paper.

They forgot to localize the deaths of two NYPD cops at the hands of a black gunman by bringing up Jersey City Police Officer Melvin Santiago, who was shot and killed by a black robbery suspect.

Santiago was killed last July 13, as Staff Writer Mike Kelly reported six days ago in an Opinion page column that drew praise from readers in two letters to the editor on Saturday's A-15.


Kelly's resume

Kelly's column was too long, especially because the reporter reminded readers what a great journalist he is -- the book he wrote on the fatal police shooting of a black Teaneck teen, the Ku Klux Klan resurgence he covered.

He said the killing of Santiago and other police officers by black gunmen should be made part of "America's racial conversation."

Of course, what Kelly didn't say is that the deaths of Santiago and the two NYPD cops on Saturday are relatively rare.

Far more numerous are the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown and all of the other minorities at the hands of white police officers who are guilty of racial profiling and abusing their authority.   

Elderly coverage

The Record's editors ignore Alzheimer's disease and the challenges facing older drivers, but assign Jay Levin to cover the elderly in his local obituaries and, as he does today, in his occasional story on a 90- or 100-year-old who still is alive and kicking (A-1).

What a terrific photo Herman Schnipper of Hackensack took of sailors at attention in 1945 on the deck of the USS Astoria (A-1). Too bad it is so small.

The much larger photo on A-1 today is one of shoppers at Westfield Garden State Plaza -- yet another example of how the editors prostrate themselves in front of big advertisers to the detriment of readers (Local front).

Food promotions

See the Better Living section today for heavy promotion of restaurants, cookbooks and small kitchen appliances (BL-2).

Hungry? Why not try Millie's "famous Pot-of-Balls"? LOL.

Saturday's paper

The "non-profit" Hackensack University Medical Center has obliterated the residential appeal of its Hackensack neighborhood and uses a lot of city services, yet pays no taxes on more than $180 million in property.

Now, Medicare is fining HUMC for not keeping elderly patients safe, according to a Page 1 story on Saturday.

Only Bergen Regional Medical Center in Paramus -- the former Bergen Pines -- did worse.

Well, at least Englewood Hospital and Medical Center is only about 7 miles away.

Putz Prize

In a letter to the editor on Saturday's A-15, Dave Tomney of Maywood commented on Kelly's Dec. 14 column on the slain Jersey City police officer, declaring the reporter will win the Pulitzer Prize.

Or, as former Breaking News Editor Jerry DeMarco would say, "Pull It, Sir" Prize.

No jail for bus driver

The crying need to jail drivers who kill pedestrians is apparent in a Local front story on Saturday.

A judge sentenced former NJ Transit driver Catherine Collier to probation after she was charged with vehicular homicide in the Sept. 27, 2012, death of Joseph Currier, 49, a Passaic man who was struck by her bus in a crosswalk.

Collier accelerated "and ended up running a red light before hitting Currier," according to prosecutors, but the former bus driver claimed at sentencing it was not her "intention for this to happen."

This story by Staff Writer Kibret Markos is filled with unanswered questions:

Why was Collier, 67, who was charged with vehicular homicide, allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge?

Judge Adam Jacobs sentenced her to a one-year suspended jail term, apparently for assault by auto.

The judge ignored the victim's mother, who said at sentencing, "I['d] like to see justice done for my son."

See this Facebook page for another instance where an NJ Transit bus driver killed a pedestrian:

Innocent People Who Lost Their Lives ...

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Another Marty Gottlieb front page that doesn't affect us

In Manhattan, workers are trimming the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, above. The tree-lighting ceremony is scheduled for Dec. 3.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A sensational child-abuse trial in federal court involving an Army couple from Mount Holly. 

Rewrites of two other newspapers -- on sports wagering in America, and the resignation of Governor Christie's chief of staff, who lost hope of ever becoming New Jersey's attorney general.

And a real fluke: A Morris County homeowner who was awarded his house after the creditors missed a legal deadline.

This last story carries an inaccurate headline: The house isn't "free" since Gordon A. Washington paid $131,000 of the mortgage before defaulting, as noted in the A-1 data box.

This is another front page that is irrelevant to the lives of the vast majority of North Jersey readers -- straight from the mind of Marty Gottlieb, the sophisticated New Yorker who is editor of The Record.

Where is the tree?

I guess the staff photographer sent to cover a "living memorial" to Waldwick Police Officer Christopher Goodell was in a rush to get to his next assignment.

The photo appears on Page 1 and the Local front, but doesn't show the copper beech tree planted to honor the cop who died when a truck driver plowed into his radar patrol car in July (A-1 and L-1).

HUMC profits

An L-1 story says nearly 200 Hackensack University Medical Center employees have accepted early retirement packages, but adds the non-profit "will hire far more people in the next 90 days than the number who are leaving."

The story also notes "two credit reporting agencies said that Hackensack -- a 775-bed medical center with $1.4 billion in annual revenue -- was doing very well financially."

As written, this story belongs on the Business page, not the Local news front, filled as it is with financial jargon.

The story also is missing any explanation of why anyone but the affected employees should care.

Nature center

The Record has done a terrible job of explaining the opposition to expansion of the Tenafly Nature Center (L-1).

Residents voted against the proposal in a Nov. 4 referendum, but today's story notes local officials had called a larger center "a boon to Tenafly."

The story also says "both sides traded accusations of misinformation," but I cannot recall the paper making any attempt to separate fact from fiction before the election.

Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives in Tenafly.

The Woodland Park daily also didn't do much to separate fact from fiction when hysterical Tenafly officials turned thumbs down on extension of NJ Transit's electrified light-rail line to the wealthy borough.  

Second looks

November is Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month, but the first story that mentioned the disease likely was the obituary of former Rep. Marge Roukema on Thursday's front page.

Roukema, who was elected to the House of Representatives 11 time, was one of those "socially moderate, fiscally conservative Northeastern Republicans [who] became increasingly rare in the years after she cast her last House vote in 2002."

The obituary by Staff Writer Herb Jackson includes praise from Democrats and Republicans alike, but Christie's name is conspicuously absent.

Roukema retired in November 2001 after narrow victories in primaries "in which challenger Scott Garrett of Sussex County said she was too liberal."

Hollywood reporters

Did you see Thursday's Better Living cover story on "a new spate of movies on journalists"?

Do any of the new or old movies from La La Land even acknowledge the mediocrity of so many local daily newspapers like The Record that are struggling to stay relevant in our digital age?

And where is the analysis of unchallenged "sound bites" that have now migrated to print journalism?

In a brief on Thursday's front page, The Record quoted House Speaker John Boehner, who called the climate deal between the U.S. and China "the latest example of the president's crusade against affordable, reliable energy," an apparent reference to coal.

A longer Boehner quote appeared in The Washington Post story on Thursday's A-10, but that paper never reported whether the ultraconservative Republican is referring to coal generating plants, which are the direct cause of mercury in fish and air pollution.

The latter probably has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. 

More errors

As he has shown so many times before, Road Warrior John Cichowski is unable to accurately report data from the annual state police report on road deaths (Friday's L-1).

Here is a summary from the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his Friday column, the Road Warrior goes down his mistake-filled wormhole of reporting about another New Jersey State Police annual report (this time for 2013) on roadway fatalities.

"The Road Warrior indicated that the increase in fatalities for Bergen County pedestrians and truck drivers was part of a 'trend.'

"They are not part of any trend.

"Bergen pedestrian deaths have gone down in 3 of the last 6 years. Tractor-trailer deaths have gone down in 2 of the last 4 years and are on pace to go down this year.

"Road Warrior indicated that the 2010 law requiring drivers to stop for to pedestrians in marked crosswalks has 'driven down' fatalities.

"Unfortunately, pedestrian deaths have gone up every year since 2010, except for last year, and are on pace to greatly exceed last year’s record low number of fatalities."

See: Road Warrior reporting mistakes climb

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He's big news on the front page, misidentified in Opinion

Late for work? On the way to the gym on Tuesday morning, I encountered this driver, who blew through a stop sign in Hackensack, and drove well over the speed limit on Spring Valley Avenue. Here, I was stopped behind the driver on Summit Avenue in Hackensack. One sticker says, "I brake for UFOs." The peace symbol obviously doesn't signal the hippie driver wants to coexist peacefully with other motorists.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's Woodland Park newsroom can't seem to get its accuracy act together.

On Sunday's front page, Bergen County Democratic Chairman Lou Stellato was portrayed as so powerful he could "make or break" a candidate seeking to become New Jersey's next governor.

But in the Opinion section, a photo of Stellato flummoxed everyone from the lowly photographer who took it to the production editor who gets paid six figures to prevent embarrassing errors from getting into the paper.

Lou who?

OK. I wouldn't know Stellato, if I sat next to him on the bus. But he doesn't look anything like James Tedesco, the Bergen County executive-elect.

Yet, the photo of Stellato ran with a caption identifying him as Tedesco, even though Tedesco was correctly identified in a photo caption on A-10 of the same edition.

The editors didn't run a correction on A-2 until Tuesday:

"A caption on Page O-4 on Sunday misidentified a man greeting supporters of Bergen County Executive-elect James Tedesco last Tuesday night. Pictured was Democratic Chairman Lou Stellato."

The problem may lie in how the lazy editors, including Production Editor Liz Houlton, have always relied on staff photographers to provide accurate spellings and identifications of the people in their photos, and have often failed to check the accuracy of the information.

More errors

A second correction on Tuesday noted the paper was wrong in identifying the type of crude oil carried by tanker cars through Bergen County.

The crude is from North Dakota, not Canada, as the L-1 story reported on Monday.

Today, A-2 corrects the misspelling of "the surname" of a high school soccer player that appeared on Nov. 4. "She is Katey Samarro," the editors note.

Bus woes ease?

A Page 1 story today reports the Port Authority has made some changes to ease the delays home-bound North Jersey commuters were facing leaving the antiquated bus terminal in midtown Manhattan during the rush hour.

But the story doesn't address the difficulty of getting to the gridlocked terminal, if you take a North Jersey bus into the city in the late afternoon.

Christie's future

Marc Schaeffer of Wyckoff is a letter writer who provides a perspective on Governor Christie's White House ambitions the editors and reporters are unable or unwilling to provide (A-10).

"Imagine the exuberance of the opposition research teams," if Christie decides to run, Schaeffer writes.

"The first vulnerability that will be exposed is the illusion of the New Jersey economic recovery Christie has advanced."

"Then, they will turn to the cesspool of patronage, cronyism and alleged financial impropriety at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey..."

You get the idea. 

Schaeffer analyzes Christie's chances of success in a way you have never seen in The Record, where the GOP bully has received overwhelmingly favorable coverage since he took office in 2010 and began his war on the middle and working classes.

Dead at 57

The Record's obituary writers can't be bothered trying to explain why so many African-American men die in their 50s, as you can see in today's story on rapper Henry Jackson of Tenafly (L-1).

Korean War veterans passing St. Patrick's Cathedral during Tuesday's parade up Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Korean New Yorkers who fought in Vietnam also marched in the Veterans Day parade.

Hackensack news

Staff Writer Todd South didn't have anything to report about this past Monday's City Council meeting.

But today, the Hackensack reporter has an upbeat story on a Veterans Day ceremony for the nearly 30 veterans who now work for Hackenack University Medical Center (L-3).

Like thousands of other residents, I thought about the hospital on Monday, when I made my quarterly property tax payment of more than $4,300 to the city of Hackenack.

How much smaller would it have been, if the non-profit but tremendously profitable hospital made payments in lieu of taxes to Hackensack or returned anything in kind, like a couple of patrol cars or paving Prospect Avenue, which is torn apart by ambulances? 

If South is looking for story ideas, the hospital's not paying taxes on more than $180 million dollars in property could be it.

He certainly can't rely on his lazy local assignment editors to wake up one day and suggest the story.

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Ebola hits newsroom, editors feed media hysteria

Park Avenue in Park Ridge also is called James Gandolfini Way. The Ridge Diner's coffee is good enough to drink black, but if you order a cafe latte, it will be served sweetened and with whipped cream on top. Yuck.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The irresponsible editors at The Record aren't even waiting for the first confirmed case of Ebola in New Jersey.

Joining the electronic media's hysteria, the Woodland Park daily today and Saturday broke out the big, black, doomsday headlines.

Transportation reporter Christopher Maag is back on the Ebola beat today, and the paper's medical writers also have entered the fray.

If you are already tired of Ebola stories, there isn't much else to on Page 1 today -- except another pedestrian political column, and a pissing match between two New Jersey architectural schools.

Is Editor Martin Gottlieb, the worldly former Timesman, this boring in person?

Joining Maag in not covering his beat is Road Warrior John Cichowski, whose L-1 column today again strays far from commuting issues.

Last Sunday, the Road Warrior column predicted Route 20 construction could be finished by December, as reflected in the headline and text, but others believe it will take longer.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior issues another dumb prediction

Noise makers

I get a kick out of photos The Record runs publicizing the charity work of Harley-Davidson owners, who cavalierly break every anti-noise ordinance on the books.

Today, the Bergen County Harley Owners Group is shown "during a benefit for the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals" (L-2).

So, modifying their motorcycle mufflers to be as loud as possible and cruelty to the eardrums of humans is OK. 

Word pusher

It must be hard being Mike Kelly, to echo the first line of the reporter's piece on Governor Christie (O-1).

Kelly rehashes the controversy over Christie's insensitive remarks about being tired of the Washington debate over raising the minimum wage.

But the burned-out columnist can't muster an opinion, and is reluctant to condemn the GOP bully, who has waged war on New Jersey's middle and working classes, and even vetoed a hike in the state's minimum wage.

"He needs to open his eyes," Kelly says lamely about Christie.

Kelly will be celebrating his 4oth year at The Record next year, if you can believe that.

'Cho in the 5th'

The Record's Editorial Board has finally come to its senses about Scott Garrett, the conservative Republican who has represented the 5th Congressional District for the past 12 years.

Today, an editorial endorses Democrat Roy Cho of Hackensack on Nov. 4 (O-2).

The district runs from the Delaware to the Hudson, and includes Bergen County.

Garrett voted "no" on the Violence Against Women Act and to end the government shutdown last year.

He also initially opposed federal Sandy aid, but lied about it in campaign literature.

Cho's highest priority as a freshman congressman would be transportation, an issue that has been neglected by The Record and ignored by Garrett and Christie.

Saturday's paper

The Ebola coverage on Saturday's front page mentioned twice that Hackensack University Medical Center's mobile satellite emergency department is parked "behind a McDonald's, in fact."

Is there a connection?

Symptoms of the African virus include "diarrhea, vomiting [and] stomach pain." 

They sound a lot like what McDonald's customers experience after eating the low-quality beef and other food.

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Editors taunt Hackensack with medical center's success

One of NJ Transit's roomy double-decker trains pulling into the Clifton station last Monday. Clifton is one of the few stations with a free parking lot for commuters.

Upper deck or lower? Avoid the train's poorly designed upper deck, with its low, head-cracking metal luggage rack. The lower deck, shown here, is a far better bet.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's breathless front-page account today of another Hackensack University Medical Center expansion examines the deal from every angle except the one that means the most to residents of its host city.

"The new organization ... will employ 23,400 people and have more than $3.4 billion in revenues ...," the story reports in the second paragraph (A-1).

The medical center's building boom in Hackensack fundamentally changed the residential character of the neighborhood, and the city has little to show in terms of property tax revenue.

HUMC is non-profit, and hasn't returned anything in lieu of the tens of millions of dollars in taxes denied to the city.

Businesses and homeowners pay more as a result.

Yet, The Record's coverage of HUMC resembles boosterism, perhaps a legacy of the years North Jersey Media Group Vice President/General Counsel Jennifer A. Borg spent on the medical center board.

Localizing Ebola

The local assignment editors sent Staff Writer Christopher Maag to Newark Liberty International Airport on Thursday, the first day of "targeted health screenings for the Ebola virus" (A-6).

But someone, likely as editor, screwed up Maag's lead paragraph:

"The first day of targeted health screenings ... was quiet Thursday ...."

Instead, this is how it should have read:

"Thursday, the first day of targeted health screenings ..., was quiet ...."

Why send Maag and not a medical writer? 

The reporter covers NJ Transit and other transportation issues, and the airport presumably is part of his beat, according to the assignment editors' tortured reasoning.

Back to the story. Let's hope Nana Smith of Hackensack doesn't suffer any fallout from being photographed at the airport "waiting for a friend from Ghana" (A-6).

More Garrett lies

Diane Callaghan of River Vale, a letter writer, says a TV ad promoting another term for Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, claims the six-termer hits the ground running every morning "to create better economic opportunities for women and their families" (A-18).

Callaghan notes Garrett voted against the Violence Against Women Act, which would have passed tougher sentences for those who commit crimes against women, as well as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which strengthened laws against wage discrimination.

Add women to Superstorm Sandy aid, both of which the Garrett campaign claims the conservative Tea Party icon favored, contrary to the truth.

Garrett will say anything to win another term in the 5th Congressional District -- getting elected is his main concern.

Roy Cho advances

Meanwhile, Democratic challenger Roy Cho of Hackenack says two recent polls show he has "vaulted into a very competitive position within single digits" of Garrett.

Compared to Garrett, who is against anything that will help the middle class, Cho has a lot going for him, including his making his first bid for elective office.

Redistricting of the 5th District in 2011 added several heavily Democratic communities, including Hackensack.

Seventy percent of the voters in the district live in Bergen County. 

The boomerang-shaped district stretches from the Delaware to the Hudson rivers.

Stomach turning

Flies not only stand on poop, they eat it, so word that Staff Writer Elisa Ung "repeatedly waved away flies in the dining room" of S. Egidio in Ridgewood is an instant turnoff (BL-16).

Only an overweight restaurant reviewer who tops off full meals with a Nutella-stuffed calzone and cheesecake could love this Neapolitan pizzeria, on which she bestows 2.5 stars.

Restaurant names continue to puzzle me. 

This joint is named after saint I never heard of. What about the Indian restaurant called Dhoom?

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After shooting, Paterson officials won't talk to Mike Kelly

Traffic was tied into knots today at Main Street and Center Avenue in Fort Lee, where noisy utility work is driving people who live and work in the neighborhood crazy. Police positioned a patrol car to funnel motorists into a single Center Avenue lane. The engine was running, but the only occupant was a large teddy bear in the back seat.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Even the great Mike Kelly couldn't get Paterson Mayor Joey Torres and Police Director Jerry Speziale to comment on the apparent drive-by shooting that killed Nazareh Bugg, 14, a high school freshman, as she walked to a takeout restaurant.

Kelly's musings on breaking news usually appear on Page 1, but today, The Record leads the Local front with his column, including a factual error in the second sentence (L-1).

"On another patch of cracked Paterson sidewalk, where another teenage girl had been murdered in another drive-by shooting, the mothers gathered on Monday," Kelly reports.

Genesis and Nazareh

Putting aside that Kelly has been churning out crap like this for more than 20 years, Genesis Rincon was only 12 when she was killed on July 5; she wasn't, as Kelly says, a "teenage girl."

The follow-up to Nazareh's shooting appears on Page 1 today, and an editorial is on A-10, but neither raises the question of what a 14-old-girl was doing on Paterson's violent streets a few minutes before midnight on Saturday.

Nor does Kelly take any notice. He's too busy documenting "cracked sidewalks" in Paterson.

And The Record just can't bring itself to call Torres and Speziale a pair of official disgraces for allowing the cold-blooded murder of another innocent minority young girl so soon after the first. 

Paper is last again

A short story on Governor Christie losing 85 pounds since having lap-band surgery in February 2013 is from The Philadelphia Inquirer, which, in turn, quotes The New York Times (A-6).

Unfortunately, anyone who lives in New Jersey and isn't a multimillionaire like Publisher Stephen A. Borg are big losers, too, since Christie took office in 2010.

Taxing hospital

Staff Writer Lindy Washburn again fails to report a big reason  for Hackensack University Medical Center's financial health.

HUMC rang up $1.4 billion in annual revenue (L-1), but as "a non-profit," it pays no taxes on more than $180 million in property it owns in Hackensack.

That gives city residents big headaches.

Two other big tax-exempt entities in the city are Bergen County and Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Meanwhile, the Costco Wholesale in Hackensack will remain open after a new warehouse store is completed in Teterboro in November 2015, meaning no loss in property taxes to the hard-pressed city. 

See:

Good and bad news at Hackensack Costco Wholesale

Causes of death?

Local obituaries usually list a cause of death, but that information is missing in two of them today (L-6).

And Arthur "Bub" Tramontin, who died at 94, is called "part of a two-wheel dynasty," but a photo shows him sitting on a motorcycle with three wheels.

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Environmental, quality of life stories go below the fold

A center divider has been added to Bergen Turnpike in Little Ferry, near the entrance to a shopping center. It's not clear whether the new barrier is related to the elimination of the nearby Little Ferry Circle. The badly buckled, flood-prone entrance road to the shopping center and its lone tenant, a Korean supermarket, was repaved. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Saving heroin addicts from overdoses is a worthy cause, but it affects far fewer people than the environmental and quality of life news readers find below the fold of The Record's front page today.

And you've got to wonder why Editor Martin Gottlieb gave into Republican hysteria over Benghazi, and led the paper with the arrest of the suspected leader of the September 2012 attack, unleashing even more political debate (A-1).

Garfield Manager Tom Duch and Englewood Cliffs Mayor Joseph Parisi Jr. appear on the lower half of Page 1 today -- and Parisi is urging "compromise" on the height of the LG Electronics building on top of the Palisades (A-1).

The first paragraph describes "a 143-foot-tall office building." Why not give the number of planned floors or stories?

Lazy local editors

The local assignment editors are squandering an opportunity to examine whether such political dynasties as the Parisis of Englewood Cliffs and the Calabrese family of Cliffside Park are really running their towns in the best interests of residents.

That certainly wasn't the case in the decades Hackensack was run by the Zisa family, but the Woodland Park daily's exposes came too late and delayed reform.

Now, the paper runs stories filled with the sour grapes of Zisa family allies who find themselves out of power, including Lynne Hurwitz, the Democratic municipal chairwoman.

See no Christie

On A-3, a story on New Jersey residents paying the highest premiums for health insurance has been carefully edited to eliminate all mention of Governor Christie.

The GOP bully, as you may recall, refused to set up a state marketplace or even use millions in federal funds to promote the federal Affordable Care Act.

As a result, residents of New Jersey and 35 other states with conservative, anti-Obama leaders were thrown onto the clearly overburdened federal marketplace.

Minor controversy

On the Local front today, the big news is the Ridgewood Planning Board rejecting the expansion plan of The Valley Hospital, a story that is of interest to a small number of residents who live near the campus (L-1).

The first paragraph contains an extra word, testament to the careful editing found throughout the paper.

Readers who wonder why The Valley Hospital controversy got so much more press than the far larger expansions of Hackensack University Medical Center might consider the onetime presence of Jennifer A. Borg on the HUMC board.

Borg is vice president and general counsel of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record.

She is listed as a board member on LinkedIn, which also says she serves on the hospital's Foundation Board and Advisory Committee, but that listing may be out of date. 

The Hurwitzes

Another L-1 story -- on the reappointment of Howard Hurwitz as the $136,000-a-year executive director of the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority -- doesn't mention Lynne Hurwitz, his wife, who is receiving a state pension of $2,499.70 a month.

According to The Bergen Dispatch Web site, the pension is based in part on her annual salary of more than $97,000 as deputy chief of staff for Dennis McNerny, a Democrat who was then Bergen County executive.

Lynne Hurwitz, often called the power behind the Zisa family in Hackensack, lost her job when Republican County Executive Kathleen Donovan took over.

Critics said one of Lynne Hurwitz's duties was to water the plants in the county administration building.

More filler stories

Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza rely on police, court and related news to fill their thin local-news section, as they did on Tuesday.

They also run two wire-service obituaries of obscure people.

Not good for you

Someone should tell food blogger Kate Morgan Jackson of Upper Saddle River that it doesn't make sense to run a recipe for "squash sushi" filled with artery clogging goat cheese and then urge readers to "drizzle the teeniest amount of [heart-healthy] olive oil" over the rolls (BL-3).

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On Christie's GWB excuses, why did it take this long?

On a two-hour visit Friday to Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus -- where a gunman fired random shots and committed suicide last Nov. 4 -- I didn't see a single security guard inside the mall. A man wearing a safety vest and a shirt with a patch on his shirt helped shoppers cross the busy road near this unguarded entrance.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Did it really take nearly five months for The Record's editors to make a detailed case against what Governor Christie said he knew about the George Washington Bridge lane closures ordered by his aides, and how little he dug into it?

And why is this exhaustive examination of the "evidence" presented by Staff Writer Charles Stile, whose boring political columns are chiefly responsible for voter apathy in North Jersey (A-1 and A-6)?

Out of Stile

This should have been published as a news investigation, not as an opinion column by a writer who has been one of the biggest boosters of Christie's White House ambitions. 

No other credit is given for the column, so it isn't known whether Port Authority reporter Shawn Boburg or Staff Writer Melissa Hayes, who is assigned to follow the governor, worked on the project.

The bridge scandal broke open on Jan. 8, when The Record reported Bridget Anne Kelly, then Christie's deputy chief of staff, e-mailed David Wildstein, a Port Authority executive:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Wildstein, one of Christie's cronies on the bi-state agency that operates the bridge, responded to the Aug. 18 message: "Got it."

The result was four days of early September gridlock in Fort Lee, where Democratic Mayor Mark Sokolich had refused to endorse the GOP bully for reelection.

We're in a jam

Since then, all the key figures, including Christie, have stymied investigators by lawyering up, taking the Fifth, stonewalling or saying they don't remember anything.

And they are sticking you and me with their legal bills, which could total $2 million.

In return for their loyalty, Press Secretary Michael Drewniak and other members of Christie's staff got raises averaging 23%.

Isn't that hush money?

Afterthoughts

The Christie piece and another front-page story on the "resegregation" of Teaneck schools seem like afterthoughts amid all the coverage of a POW released in Afghanistan, and a bunch of foul-mouthed and foul-smelling pro hockey players (A-1).

The number of errors in the last two Sunday editions has declined dramatically in the absence of columns by Road Warrior John Cichowski.

The best story in today's Local section is the obituary for Jewish-Chinese community theater actor Edward B. Thom, formerly of Englewood (L-1).

Self-driving hype

On the Opinion front, a column by Edward Niedermeyer, an auto-industry consultant, oversells the significance of Google's self-driving car (O-1).

Like millions of hybrid and all-electric cars before it, the driverless car will make only small inroads into sales of gas-guzzling SUVs and ever-more-powerful performance and sports sedans.

In a masterful rewrite of previous columns, Staff Writer Mike Kelly bluffs his way through another piece on another disturbed gunman, who killed six and wounded 22 in California (O-1).

'Worst governor'

Letter writer Stephen Gigante of Hackensack hits the bull's-eye on Christie, who has proven such an elusive target for the editors (O-3):

"From the George Washington Bridge scandal, to violations of OPRA, to diverting Port Authority ... funds to the Pulaski Skyway, to the failure to make pension payments and to putting himself in commercials hyping Sandy relief [before last November's election], Governor Christie is ... becoming a footnote for the term 'worst Governor New Jersey has ever had.'"

Greed is good

The upbeat Business section cover story on the expansion of North Jersey hospitals outside their main campuses doesn't explore the impact of their tax-exempt status on municipal property taxes (R-1).

Most of Hackensack University Medical Center's 2.5 million square feet "on its main campus" in Hackensack is tax exempt, raising the levy paid by city residents.

HUMC has fundamentally altered the character of the neighborhood and makes a big demand on services, but gives little back to the city. 

If the hospital buys a building in another town, will that property be tax exempt as well? The story is silent on that angle. 

Flip side of news

Given The Record's superficial coverage of all of the foreclosures in New Jersey, today's Real Estate cover on Kevin Errico -- a Re/Max agent in Saddle River who "flips" empty homes for profit -- is really in bad taste (R-1).

But it is no surprise. 

Real Estate and The Record's Business section reflect the Borg family's enduring philosophy of putting profit ahead of journalism. 

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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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