More too-little, too-late coverage of GWB scandal, A.C.

A third story of residential units has been added to the State Street redevelopment project in Hackensack, a building that is expected to have 222 units above a parking garage when it is completed in 2015.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The major takeouts on The Record's front page today raise a lot of unanswered questions about the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal and Atlantic City (A-1).

The so-called Analysis by Staff Writer Shawn Boburg doesn't address the chief question on readers' minds -- why is the federal grand jury investigation of the politically inspired traffic jams in Fort Lee (Sept. 9-13, 2013) taking so long?

Professor Brigid Harrison is quoted as saying the GOP bully's administration no longer controls "the narrative" (A-7).

If that's so, why does The Record persist in flattering coverage, such as the gushing stories on Governor Christie's purely political visit to Mexico last week?

Reporters love quoting Harrison, but shouldn't The Record acknowledge when it does so that she is one of its Sunday columnists? 

Maybe, it's time for the lazy newsroom editors to cast a wider net for experts.

I'm not going to bother with the The GWB Files interactive presentation at NorthJersey.com, but wonder why the nefarious motives for the lane closures weren't discovered before the November election, when Christie won a second term.

Is the photo caption on A-7 correct in saying the lane closures lasted "five days," not four?

Behind 8 ball

Is 36 years after Atlantic City's first casino opened really the right time to report on what the shore resort can learn from Las Vegas (A-1)?

Staff Writer John Brennan, a brain-damaged former sports reporter, doesn't even mention Vegas' $3.99 buffets and all the ridiculously cheap hotel rooms that lure millions to the desert.

Revel, the $2.9-billion boondoggle that just bit the dust, opened with $400-a-night rooms and the smallest casino in Atlantic City, dooming it to failure.

Sending Brennan to Las Vegas is a huge waste of money, and a waste of readers' time.

If you think his report is laughable, check out Mike Kelly's silly, shit-eating-grin perspective on Atlantic City (O-1).

Rich districts

Do school districts in wealthy towns like Tenafly and Fort Lee get more coverage in The Record (L-1 and L-3)?

Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives in Tenafly, but when is the last time the Woodland Park daily covered the Hackensack district, which spends more money per pupil than Ridgewood?

Editors get high

The Business editors couldn't find a North Jersey company that was as interesting as a Denver marijuana store (B-1).

The 4-page section supplied by The Wall Street Journal every Sunday is a testament to how hard the local business staff works to bring readers North Jersey news. 

Readers looking for a discussion of restaurant issues, such as tipping or high liquor prices, will be disappointed in The Corner Table column from Elisa Ung today (BL-1).

Traveling music

The Record's already thin Travel section is devoting less and less space to reporting on the high cost of vacations (T-1).

For years, Travel Editor Jill Schensul has reduced her workload by running a full page of readers' vacation photos on T-2.

Today, the Travel cover is filled with reader selfies (three of the five on T-1 are from Venice, Italy). More appear on T-4.

In the biggest selfie on T-1, Adam Nolte of Wyckoff doesn't look too happy. Did he pay the gondolier?

Didn't any of The Record's black and Hispanic readers send in selfies? 

Evonne Coutros

The byline of Evonne Coutros last appeared in The Record on March 3, 2014, over a story about Wyckoff, one of the towns she covered, according to NorthJersey.com.

Her byline also appeared in The Hellenic Times as far back as 1989, when she also was employed at The Record.

Coutros had a knack of landing interviews with the biggest celebrities, but The Record's editors usually assigned her to cover news from Ridgewood, Glen Rock, Ho-Ho-Kus, Franklin Lakes and other small towns.

A reader of Eye on The Record recently asked if Coutros died. I don't know.

She was 57 and lived in Closter, I believe.

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More speculative news for gamblers lands on Page 1

Fort Lee police closed the Route 4 approach to the George Washington Bridge without warning on Sunday morning, then after a delay of about 5 minutes, opened one lane. Serious accident? Carjacking? As I drove by, two police officers were standing outside of their cruisers, looking down at a large pothole.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

What hold does Staff Writer John Brennan have on the clueless editors?

How did the former sports reporter get another speculative story on whether North Jersey will get a casino in a couple of years on Page 1 of The Record today?

Brennan -- honorary chairman of the Garden State chapter of Gamblers Anonymous -- has loudly talked up his Meadowlands stories for many years, wearing down local-news Editors Tim Nostrand, Deirdre Sykes and others.

His ridiculous stories on the racetrack and the possibility of casinos appear on the Local front and front page, aimed directly at gambling addicts.

Now, he's got Editor Marty Gottlieb in his grip, but that means the vast majority of readers have to turn the pages of the Woodland Park daily, looking for something relevant to their lives.

Local news

On the Local front today, a story on a Colombian festival moving from Hackensack to a larger Leonia site doesn't mention Englewood's annual Colombian celebration (L-1).

Two other stories report on express bus service to link Englewood with the Secaucus Junction rail hub (L-1), and the replacement of the shuttered Lincoln School and a firehouse with a $60 million residential/retail project (L-3).

'Children not at play'

But the small city already has built hundreds of apartments downtown and on both sides of Route 4, with no discernible positive impact on Palisade Avenue merchants.

The segregated Lincoln School was more than 100 years old when it was closed in 2008, and a plan to convert it into a recreation center was rejected by city officials, who cited the high cost.

More mass transit

Englewood continues to develop its mass transit, with the plan for the awkwardly named Bus Rapid Transit and making Englewood Hospital & Medical Center the terminus for NJ Transit's Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system.

Meanwhile, Tenafly has rejected light-rail service, and officials have cited residents' constitutional right to drive enormous SUVs into the city, pollute the air and waste fossil fuel.

Tenafly counts Publisher Stephen A. Borg among its wealthiest residents.

NJ Transit's electrified Hudson-Bergen Light Rail in Jersey City. Englewood hopes agency officials will extend the system to the hospital and medical center north of downtown.

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Christie will be gone when pension fund goes broke

The air is fragrant in Hackensack, above and below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today's front page "ANALYSIS" of the deepening state pension system crisis is good, but Staff Writer John Reitmeyer of The Record could be accused of burying the lead.

Readers who stick with his account -- which begins by saying "Governor Christie is following the well-worn path" of his predecessors by skipping payments -- might be shocked to see what awaits them on the continuation page:

"What all this means is that at some point in the future, according to experts, New Jersey's pension system, currently underfunded by an estimated $52 billion, could become simply too costly to keep afloat" (A-6).

That should have been the first paragraph on A-1 for crying out loud.

Derelict editors

Who was Editor Marty Gottlieb or one of his minions thinking of when they worked on this Page 1 story?

Certainly not public employees or even readers of the Woodland Park daily.

Readers also find out on A-6 the GOP bully basically told another lie: 

"Christie ... recently erroneously lumped [former Governor Jon] Corzine among the list of New Jersey governors who made no pension payments during their tenure."

Taxing readers

Now, Christie is facing a $1 billion budget shortfall, because he has refused, among other things, to impose a tax surcharge on millionaires or raise the low gasoline tax to fund road and mass-transit improvements.

Reitmeyer doesn't cite the conservative's inflexible no-tax policies or his past practice of balancing the budget on the backs of the middle and working classes.

In fact, the reporter doesn't even bother telling readers how many public employees are covered by the state's pension system or who they are.

Are they just bureaucrats in Trenton or are they teachers, police officers and firefighters -- in other words our neighbors?

The story says Christie is cutting his planned $1.58 billion pension contribution back to $696 million and, in the fiscal year that begins July 1, a $2.25 billion pension payment would now be just $681 million.

Christie also says he will "put forward new public worker benefit changes in the next few weeks" (A-6).

If I was a public worker who is already contributing more to my pension thanks to Christie, I'd really be worried.

Breathe deep.

Crash landing

Why was a pea-brained former sports reporter assigned to the story on the untimely demise of New Jersey multimillionaire Lewis Katz, killed in the "fiery crash" of a Gulfstream private jet on Saturday night (A-3)?

Staff Writer John Brennan reports "National Transportation Safety Board officials said it was too soon to discuss the cause of the crash."

They always say that less than two days after a crash, but there are usually only two possible causes: Pilot error or a mechanical problem.

Private-jet travel is one of the privileges of wealth, but Brennan doesn't even say whether it is safer to fly commercial.


The Borgs and Main Street

The Borgs' North Jersey Media Group has never had much affection for Main Street, judging by the abysmal lack of coverage of struggling downtowns in Englewood, Teaneck and other communities.

And Hackensack -- where The Record prospered for more than 110 years -- and its Main Street are still trying to recover from Publisher Stephen A. Borg's decision in 2009 to close the paper's headquarters on River Street, and move to the sticks.

Where money talks

Joan Verdon, the paper's retail reporter, writes almost exclusively about North Jersey's malls and highway retailers -- where the Borgs reap millions of dollars in advertising revenue.

You could think of this as journalism pay to play. Do merchants have to advertise in The Record to get coverage?

But the Business page on Monday carries a feature called "Main Street" that appears to be the editors' attempt to fool readers into thinking otherwise.

Today's piece is about North Jersey's pet-walking and pet-sitting businesses. Another recent "Main Street" feature reported on the maker of custom golf pants.

What a farce.

Teaneck police

The lead story in Local today is an upbeat report on the 100th anniversary of the Teaneck Police Department (L-1).

Staff Writer Jim Norman notes the onetime all-male force "now includes seven women, two of whom are lieutenants and two detectives."

But Norman fails to tell readers about the sordid period when women in the Teaneck department filed sexual-harassment lawsuits against their male superiors, resulting in legal fees and settlements that cost taxpayers many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Are local assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza -- veterans who should be familiar with those suits -- deliberately slanting stories so as not to offend the Teaneck police?

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How is business in wealthy Englewood? Don't ask

Signs of wealth in downtown Englewood, such as the greatly expanded Mercedes-Benz dealership, co-exit with the shells of failed businesses, including family owned Mitchell Simon Co., an upscale hardware store that sold outdoor furniture, fireplaces and many other items.

Two of three empty storefronts on a short stretch of Palisade Avenue in Englewood, a classic two-sides-of-the-tracks town. They have been empty for many months.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record today reports Englewood officials have approved a 2014 budget that will raise municipal taxes for the first time in four years (Local front).

The second paragraph of the story hints at the wealth of the city, noting the average home is assessed at $458,000 -- this in a community with a large number of modest houses and working-class residents.

But The Record's superficial coverage of Englewood ignores a persistent problem, a downtown that continues to struggle, as any visitor can see immediately.

There are signs of new life along Palisade Avenue, but empty storefronts predominate, and some of them have been empty for months or more than a year.

The Woodland Park daily prefers to lavish coverage on highway and mall retailers, some of the paper's biggest advertisers, and ignore Englewood and other downtowns.

The street in front of Englewood City Hall is informally called Dizzy's Place. Jazz trumpet great Dizzy Gillespie lived on the city's East Hill for many years and died at Englewood Hospital and Medical Center.

Today's front page

Whose idea was it to lead the paper with new rules for "oil trains" and "confusion over state housing guidelines"?

How tedious. 

Buried at the bottom of Page 1 today is the outrageous $7.5 million Super Bowl sales tax rebate Governor Christie gave to the wealthy National Football League (A-1).

The Record relentlessly hyped the Super Bowl, starting about two years before the February game, thanks to Staff Writer John Brennan, one of the dim bulbs who came over to news from the sports staff.

More poor editing

In a story about inmates taking part in a state program that allows them to pursue college degrees (A-3), a typo makes one woman sound uneducated:

"I am no long stifling my potential," said Amarilis Rodriguez.

In today's edition of the Hackensack Chronicle, a story on a transformed city Police Department notes old uniforms worn by officers included "open collar shorts," a typo that appears twice (Page 3).

High wine prices

Ordering wine by the glass in most restaurants is a rip-off, and Aldo's in Wyckoff is no exception, selling whites and reds for 96 cents to about $10 per ounce (BL-16).

At least, the restaurant/wine bar allows you to bring your own, if you sit in the dining room.

Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung says eating and drinking "options can get confusing." 

But her data box today says nothing about the "value" of the food, including a $35.95 veal chop that may not be naturally raised and $31.95 for orange roughy, presumably a fillet from the relatively large, deep-sea fish.

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Here's another snow job from the imperious editors

Courthouse Cafe & Diner opened recently near the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, but the owner set his closing time for 4 p.m., when the city's quiet Main Street goes into hibernation.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Year after year, property taxes rise and the quality of snowplowing drops as municipal crews in Hackensack and other towns seem unwilling or unable to properly clear streets, crosswalks and bus stops.

In decades of covering winter storms, The Record has never sent out reporters to review how well or how poorly towns do on providing safe streets after a storm.

But today, a huge patch of the front page is devoted to a monster snow-melting machine and other measures in anticipation of bad weather for the Super Bowl in February.

That's next year -- in case you missed the whopper of an error in the first paragraph of today's story, which calls it "this year's Super Bowl."

The clueless John Brennan, a reporter who once covered sports, or one of his editors created the error, and six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton missed it.

As always, the joke is on the reader for thinking The Record is a serious local newspaper.

Christie follies 

Governor Christie's fiscal mismanagement and impractically strict no-tax policy on millionaires becomes clearer every day, as readers can see from today's A-1 story on Moody's Investors Services downgrading the state's $32 billion debt.

But the GOP bully, who is superb at managing the news, told reporters he had no comment and to get lost.

Native American news

The Local front carries a follow-up to Wednesday's Page 1 story on a new Hollywood film that smears the reputation of the Ramapough Mountain Indians  (L-1).

I cringed at Wednesday's story, which seemed to delight in repeating all of the racial slurs and insults hurled at the Ramapoughs in the past 200 years.

Given all the crap churned out by Hollywood, readers have to question why The Record and other newspapers devote so much space to movies and pretend to look at them critically.

The Record's Better Living entertainment tabloid on Fridays is top heavy with news of the movies, always devoting the cover to the latest trash from a director whose only goal appears to be outdoing other directors.

And what's with this kick for recreating and distorting the past, such as the Quentin Tarantino bloodbath called "Django Unchained"?

Hackensack news

Kathleen Gehm, 63, of River Vale has been cleared of a driving while intoxicated charge in the death of prominent Hackensack businessman Jerome S. Some, 87 (L-1).

As with so many pedestrian deaths, Gehm is apparently saying she didn't see Some before she ran him down on Prospect Avenue as he crossed the street to attend a meeting  at Bel Posto, a restaurant opposite his high-rise.

Building renovations forced relocation of the meeting to the restaurant.

Jerome Some's family members quoted in today's story weren't asked if they are going to file a negligence and wrongful death suit against Gehm. 

In a second Hackensack story today, officials say they are shutting down the city's Human Services Department for an anticipated annual savings of $400,000 a year (L-1).

Don't hold your breath, if you live in Hackensack and expect a property tax cut as a result.

Mentally defective

You have to wonder about the intelligence of some gun-rights advocates, such as Scott Bach of Newfoundland, a member of the National Rifle Association and head of a group of New Jersey rifle and pistol clubs (L-3).

Bach is criticizing Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop for suggesting gun manufacturers who want to do business with the city's Police Department commit themselves to gun-safety measures.

Bach -- who I doubt is related to the classical composer -- said the mayor joined the Marines after 9/11 and is the grandson of Holocaust survivors, then added this total non-sequitur:

"So you've got to wonder why he is not getting it."

Getting what? 

That we should all buy guns because another Hitler is set on exterminating 12 million more people or Muslim terrorists are going to fly planes into The Modern, the 47-story residential tower going up in Fort Lee?

Maybe Bach just doesn't have any confidence in the police to protect him from criminals and other trigger-happy elements in society.

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When ads are more readable than so-called news

The beach at Cape May, a jewel of the Jersey shore.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The danger of wrapping a supermarket flier around the main news section is that readers might find Thanksgiving promotions more interesting than anything a turkey like Staff Writer John Brennan has to report about horse racing (A-1).

And what is the publisher of The Record trying to say by wrapping a hearing-aid advertisement around today's Sports section?

Important news

There is compelling reading scattered throughout the paper today, starting with a dramatic Page 1 account of how three women and a girl from different walks of life were all victims of domestic violence, and another piece on the law (A-1 and O-1).

Giving a lie to the bounty promised by the ShopRite ad wrapped around the A-section today, a story on the Local front reports on a continued decline in donations to North Jersey food pantries (L-1).

Even a Business front story on the proposed ban on trans fats (B-1) has more universal appeal than all that front-page space Editor Marty Gottlieb wasted on The Meadowlands Racetrack and gambling addicts (A-1).

Veteran newsroom staffers will get a kick out of the black-and-white photo of a packed grandstand on opening day of the racetrack, Sept. 1, 1976, showing two lifers, Jim "Corny" Cornelius and Vinny Byrne, as young men eagerly pressing against the fence (A-6).

More A-1 space is wasted on Governor Christie, the new chairman of the Republican Goobers Association, and corporate campaign donations.

Tolls going up

On the Local front today, Road Warrior John Cichowski awakes from a deep sleep and finally takes notice of all the road construction that has been driving his readers crazy for several years (L-1).

But even without road work, commuting by car, bus and train is a nightmare -- a story Cichowski has ignored.

And another phase of the increases Christie rubber stamped go into affect next Sunday, when E-ZPass tolls at the Hudson River crossings go up to $11 during peak hours and $9 off-peak -- 75 cents higher than before.

The $13 cash toll doesn't increase, but the Dec. 1 hikes are only the third of five scheduled through 2015 by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which the governor packed with his cronies.

Why is the GWB cash toll $13 -- $8 more than at the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York?  

Stupid idea

On L-3, a story on Englewood officials providing free LED bulbs to downtown store owners willing to leave their lights on until midnight would be only a cosmetic fix for the city's main street.

What do officials intend to do about all of the vacant storefronts on Palisade Avenue?

Palisade Avenue in Englewood.

Downsized staff

A full-page ad on the back of the Local section shows what appears to be the entire skeleton crew running The Record, North Jersey Media Group's flagship daily (L-8).

Contrast the small number of employees shown in what I'm guessing is the publishing company's Rockaway Township press room with the 1,500 who worked for the paper at its peak in Hackensack, which the Borg family abandoned in 2009.


Sloppy editing

Poor editing continues, as confused readers can see from the Business front story on trans fats (B-1).

A photo shows Admiration-brand Pro-Fry -- liquid shortening made by the Supreme Oil Co. in Englewood -- with the words "ZERO TRANSFAT" clearly visible on the package front.

But in the second paragraph, the story reports "demand for Pro-Fry ... made with trans fatty partially hydrogenated oil ... has been on the wane and may soon disappear."

Production Editor Liz Houlton should be asked, Does it or doesn't it have trans fats?

Good neighbor?

Supreme Oil Co. is well-known in Englewood for using unusually noisy tractors to move truck trailers to an Englewood Avenue lot around the corner from its South Dean Street headquarters.

Because Dean Street is one way in the wrong direction, the noisy tractors wake up residents through the night as they use residential streets, including Grand Avenue, which is lined with apartments.

JFK and the media

The Record's three-week focus on where readers were when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963, completely missed the point.

Most of that space should have been devoted to his legacy as a great president and the contrast he represents to the sorry lot of selfish, conservative leaders we have today -- from Christie to House Speaker John Boehner to your favorite Tea Party crackpot (See Your Views, O-3).

Say what?

It's hard to understand how Houlton, who is paid six-figures to supervise editing and proofreading, can allow the following sentence to get into the paper, especially on A-1.

"As of [Beth] Fabbricatore's death Monday, theirs constituted the gross majority of Bergen County's five homicides in 2013."

In other words, as of Monday, domestic violence killed four of the five homicide victims in Bergen County this year.

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Gee whiz, you don't see that every day

Hackensack MayorJohn Labrosse is ditching the no-settlement lawsuit policy followed by the old City Council, The Record reports today. Joe Zisa Jr., who wasn't reappointed as city attorney on July 1, had claimed fighting lawsuits against cousin and then-Police Chief Ken Zisa was cheaper than settling. Joe Zisa should have been let go years ago, if for no other reason than his clear conflict of interest.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Wow. When was the last time you saw the crash photo of a huge passenger jet in the newspaper?

Well, thanks to Editor Marty Gottlieb, here it is on the front page of The Record today, with more photos on A-10.

OK. They are a hell of a lot more exciting than the ponderous stories on the rest of A-1, but readers looking for local news are prompted to ask once again: Is that all there is, Marty?

A real gamble

The byline of Staff  Writer John Brennan appears on an overlong, poorly written Page 1 story on Atlantic City's struggling casinos without a single mention of why many people never go to the shore resort:

Much higher hotel-room prices than in Las Vegas. Atlantic City's Revel bombed because of rooms priced at $400 a night.

If you need further evidence of Brennan's struggles  with English, check out the awkward phrase "money-paying customers" in his first paragraph.

Car-centric coverage

Automobile dealers are probably The Record's biggest advertisers, so it's no surprise this towering journalism enterprise rarely reports on their deceptive sales practices.

Instead, today's front page presents a who-cares story on surging automobile sales in Bergen County and New Jersey (A-1).

I scanned the story, but couldn't find an interview with a dealer or customer on Hackensack's Tin Alley, the auto row that was in the news a week ago on the 25th anniversary of the fire that killed 5 of the city's bravest.

Who's debating this?

The third main element on A-1 today presents a privacy debate only journalists are having about the nanny cam video that led to the quick arrest of a suspect known for his brutality.

The Record worships celebrity chefs and loves to promote new restaurants, but rarely thinks about the tremendous heat cooks endure in restaurant kitchens, as today's heat-wave story shows (Local front).

Head in pothole

Pothole Pundit John Cichowski unleashes more data on road repairs and related issues in today's Road Warrior column, though careful readers will likely find the usual errors (L-1).

Cichowski also manages to give Governor Christie a pass on his regressive no-tax policy to fund road and bridge repairs, and mass-transit improvements.

In his July 3 column on children who die of heat stroke in cars, Cichowski completely ignored a major cause -- children playing in unattended vehicles -- according to a concerned reader:

"He was negligent and failed  to mention that 30%, which was more than 160 deaths, were caused by kids playing in unattended cars, or any solutions for that problem.

"He failed to provide the Web site, which provides a lot more useful information from the San Francisco study that he cited.

"Perhaps, he did not want to be embarrassed or held accountable for his mistaken facts and false reasons, which contradict this study.

"Shame on John and The Record management for his dereliction of duty."

To read the full e-mail to management, see the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior endangers children


This is better?

An L-3 story on "improvements" at Englewood schools doesn't mention whether the school board will try to ease classroom segregation or even if trustees are concerned about the issue.

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Long, involved stories that excite only the editors

A Juneteenth celebration on Saturday in the Ridgefield Park section of the new Overpeck Park, above, included a lot of great food, such as this fried whole red snapper prepared by the Church of God of Prophecy in Englewood, below.

Call them retrospectives or process stories, the three takeouts that start on Page 1 of The Record today excite only the editors and reporters who worked on them, and put the rest of us to sleep.

How can Staff Writer John Brennan go on and on about "equity," "tax abatements," "tax breaks" and "private financing," but never tell readers when that monstrosity called American Dreams Meadowlands is going to be repainted (A-1 and A-7)?

The ugly hulk visible to every driver on the turnpike has turned into a long-running Jersey joke.

One-track mind

Meanwhile, Staff Writer Karen Rouse continues to obsess over a safe haven for NJ Transit railcars and locomotives, ignoring the screams from rush-hour commuters who have to stand in the aisles (A-1 and A-6).

Check out the dated black-and-white photos and stale news in the Jersey mob story, which is linked to the death on Wednesday of actor James Gandolfini, who portrayed the boss in "The Sopranos," a TV fiction that ended 6 long years ago (A-1, A-6, L-1 and BL-1).

Those old photos remind readers of the dated thumbnails that run with columns by aging Staff Writers Mike Kelly and Virginia Rohan, and Travel Editor Jill Schensul.

Refreshing news

The only bright spot on the front page is the upbeat story on retiring Teaneck teacher Rosanne Ponchick, who used tea-bag tags as a teaching tool (A-1 and A-5).

More road error

On the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to ignore North Jersey's nightmarish traffic jams and related commuting issues to go on and on about driving and cellphones (L-1).

His last column was far from accurate, according to an e-mail to management from a concerned reader:

"The Road Warrior returns in his June 21 column [Friday] to one of his many fiascoes and piles on even more of his confusing mistakes and advice about when to call 911 or #77 while driving. He contradicts state laws, police guidelines and Web sites.

"He advises and reports that drivers should call 911, when they should call #77, and vice versa. He advises and reports that drivers can also call local police, which is impractical since most people do not have police numbers for every town they drive in.

"The Road Warrior continues to repeatedly quote officials, who make false statements, which also contradict state laws or guidelines, without any fact-checking or counterpoints.

 "How does The Record management allow dissemination to its readers of such grossly unsafe, mistaken reporting and confusing advice, which does not comply with state  statutes and guidelines, and then not insist the Road Warrior make needed corrections?"

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

Road Warrior is who ya not gonna call

Noisy bikers

Another driving-related issue Cichowski won't dare touch are all of those municipal anti-noise ordinances routinely violated by owners of Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Those bikers modify their Harleys to make as much noise as possible, then thumb their noses at all of the people they disturb with their piggish behavior.

These menaces hoodwink The Record and other media with charity runs, such as the one reported today on L-1.

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