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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Was Tony Soprano elected governor of New Jersey?

Welcome to New Jersey: With the Bayonne Bridge closed, people disembarking from a cruise ship at Port Jersey in Bayonne on Saturday faced a 30-minute delay in reaching the New Jersey Turnpike.

After the tollbooths, drivers passed an oasis of beauty next to the turnpike.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers with solar panels on their homes searched today's front page in vain for a clue to whether The Record's lead story on the state Clean Energy Program had anything to do with them (A-1).

If they managed to plow through all of the long, densely written paragraphs on A-1 without losing interest -- and that's doubtful -- they turned to the continuation page and saw a big photo of solar panels on a county building (A-6).

But why did Editor Marty Gottlieb think this is the first thing readers wanted to see today?

Staff Writer Jean Rimbach, the least productive reporter in the Woodland Park newsroom, worked on this expose a long time, but it is no easier to get into or understand, and whatever editing it might have received is invisible.

What it means

Has Rimbach's investigation uncovered another one of Governor Christie's failed promises or the well-known revolving door between government and industry?

And I can't see how any of this affects me as a homeowner who has solar panels on his roof or anyone else who took part in the Clean Energy Program.

I'm still getting free electricity more than six months out of the year, and I'm still earning monthly solar credits I can sell to Public Service Electric & Gas for cash.

Despite all of the talent Gottlieb has on his local photo staff, the former New York Times veteran keeps on running wire-service photos on Page 1, such as the silly one today of "pro-Russia protesters."

On A-2, the SHOT OF THE DAY is from Gaza City. Maybe, the real shot of the day is the majestic eagle on the Local front today.

Tony Soprano

A second piece on Page 1 today is clearly about another of the GOP bully's failed promises -- the incredible mismanagement of Superstorm Sandy aid (A-1 and A-7).

On Friday night, HBO satirist Bill Maher suggested Tony Soprano wasn't whacked in the final episode of "The Sopranos" in June 2007, he was elected governor of New Jersey.

After the belly laughs died down, that didn't seem so far-fetched, given how Christie has treated Sandy victims, bridge-and-tunnel Democrats in Fort Lee and other cities, commuters and the middle and working classes on whose backs he is about to balance another state budget.

White and black

Why did the local editors put David Peluso, a heroin addict from Mahwah, on the Local front, and bury a story about Kirk-Andeno Lawrence, 21, a promising college student who worked with an EMT unit?

Lawrence, of Paterson, committed suicide. He was black, as was the reporter who wrote the story, and the heroin addict is white. 

Did that have anything to do with placement of the respective stories?

Inflated salaries

Also on the Local front today is a piece by Staff Writer Hannan Adely on public relations consultants hired by a small number of towns, including Hackensack.

The city, which can't afford to repair potholes, is paying Thom Ammirato $78,000 a year -- a reward for his work as campaign manager to the Citizens for Change slate that swept last May's City Council election.

But Mayor John Labrosse, the top vote-getter, claims he didn't know Ammirato, the city's chief spokesman, already had a full-time public relations job with Bergen County's Republican administrator, plus a few other side jobs.

Ammirato's one-year contract with Hackensack expires in mid-July.

Newsroom changes

Meanwhile, Adely has been pulled off her Hackensack beat, and Kibret Markos has been assigned to the Passaic County Courthouse in Paterson after years of covering state Superior Court in Hackensack.

Staff Writer Peter J. Sampson replaced Markos at the Bergen County Courthouse, where there will a lot less second-hand smoke outside the main entrance the latter favored for his frequent smoking breaks.

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Bridgegate probe targets only delay the inevitable

If you live in Hackensack, your property taxes don't pay for buses to take your children to school, unless they are handicapped. On Wednesday, this bus dropped off disabled children at the four-story high school, where the elevator used by the handicapped has been broken for about two months.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

First, they lawyered up. Now, they're shutting up.

We can only imagine what Bridget Anne Kelly is trying to hide by refusing to turn over documents to state lawmakers investigating last September's George Washington Bridge lane closures (The Record's front page today).

Many believe the resulting gridlock in Fort Lee was part of a pattern of political retribution by the Christie administration in Democratic strongholds in the months leading up to last November's election, when Christie won a second term.

Kelly, Governor Christie's former deputy chief of staff, is shown in a Page 1 photo today wearing a string of pearls, a suggestion of the noose she deserves for her infamous e-mail to the Port Authority, which operates the bridge:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Not that Kelly

Many readers are sorry the headline over a Charles Stile column on A-1 -- "Kelly looking for a new image, new job" -- doesn't refer to Mike Kelly, the tired columnist who often merely pushes around words to little effect.

Bridget Kelly's famous criminal lawyer, Michael Critchley, challenged the state Legislature's subpoenas for more documents, including earlier e-mails, "on constitutional grounds." 

He even said there is no proof she sent the e-mail that blew open the Bridgegate scandal and tied the lane closures to Christie's inner circle and his cronies at the Port Authority, including David Wildstein, who answered with an e-mail of his own, "Got it."

Exaggerated headline

The headline -- "GWB inquiry on trial" -- is the kind of simplistic ignorance that exists in most newsrooms.

And no one, including Staff Writer Shawn Boburg, believes Superior Court Assignment Judge Mary C. Jacobsen will kill the subpoenas for documents from Bridget Kelly and former Christie campaign manager Bill Stepien.

Newsroom potholes

Many drivers yawned when they saw today's Page 1 story on New Jersey's decision to repave its stretch of the Palisade Interstate Parkway, which is used by a small minority of The Record's readers.

The story, written by Road Warrior John Cichowski, continues his pattern of exaggeration and hype about potholes when he reports "some cabdrivers refuse to use the Bergen County portion."

My recollection is that a past Road Warrior column quoted one man who said his cabdriver refused to use the parkway.

Why isn't the state going to repave state highways that are in equally poor condition or award grants to municipalities like Hackensack that can't seem to find the money to repave Prospect Avenue and other pockmarked streets?

More corrections

Corrections on A-2 of a story on The Children's Place and a non-profit item have readers wondering if The Record will ever correct the hundreds of errors that have piled up in the Road Warrior column in the past decade.

The headline on A-3 today makes it sound like protesters have succeeded in getting Christie to renominate New Jersey Chief Justice Stuart Rabner, a Democrat, but the story says that isn't the case:

Protesters push

Christie to rename

Rabner to bench 

Battle of the rich

The Record has resumed its blanket coverage of the Hudson News inheritance battle, which is playing out in Superior Court in Hackensack, where James Cohen is testifying (L-1).

Publisher Stephen A. Borg has ordered Editor Marty Gottlieb to report more on the activities of multimillionaires like himself.

That will mean Staff Writer Kibret Markos, who covers the courthouse, will continue to neglect civil trials involving lesser folks.

Wrong photos

The Tesla story on L-8 uses photos of an all-electric roadster the company stopped taking orders for in August 2011. 

Why didn't the Business editors use photos of the current all-electric sedan, the Model S?

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Editors' well-crafted Christie image is unraveling

For the 11th straight day, The Record is devoting a large part of the front page to the fallout from closure of two of the three lanes (right of the double-yellow lines) leading to upper-level George Washington Bridge tollbooths in Fort Lee.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

A third Democratic mayor in North Jersey is complaining about bullying by the Christie administration, The Record reports on Page 1 today.

Faced with the unraveling of Governor Christie's "bipartisan compromise" image -- as crafted by the paper's editors -- chief apologist Charles Stile's column traces the birth of the monster to campus politics 30 years ago (A-1).

How boringly irrelevant can you get? 

Photos of a thin Christie as the University of Delaware student government president bear no resemblance to the GOP bully whose weight and eating habits are lampooned by comedians.

Bridgegate jokes

On HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," the comedian addressed the Bridgegate scandal:

He noted that Christie needed to shed an unwanted 150 pounds -- a reference to Bridget Anne Kelly, the aide who was fired for her involvement in tying up traffic at the Fort Lee end of the George Washington Bridge in early September.

The lane closures on the bridge showed Christie is really good at "clogging major arteries," Maher said on Friday night. 

As for his 2-hour apology in front of the national media 10 days ago, when he claimed his staff lied to him about the plot, Christie was saying, "I'm large, but not in charge."

Ties that bind

The allegations by Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer show how the Christie team allegedly used federal Sandy aid as leverage to gain an advantage for a development tied to one of the governor's cronies -- lawyer David Samson, chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (A-1).

Samson was one of three Christie appointees to the bi-state agency, and the only one who has kept his influential patronage position in the wake of the scandal. 

Two of Christie's Trenton aides were fired.

More Bridgegate coverage appears today on front of the otherwise thin Local section (L-1), and on the Opinion front (O-1).

More error

The befuddled Road Warrior ties the politically inspired lane closures to 2013 pedestrian fatalities in Bergen County, Christie's terrible driving record before he became governor and bridge-related gridlock in Fort Lee dating to 2010.

The rambling column, by Staff Writer John Cichowski, reports the lane closures caused huge traffic problems from Sept. 9-13, even though the paper has consistently reported gridlock occurred on only four days, Sept. 9-12 (L-1).

Although Cichowski claims to have broken the story in a Sept. 13 column, The Record has acknowledged the tip came from Publisher Stephen A. Borg, who got a complaining call from a friend trying to drive into Manhattan.

Among the letters to the editor today (O-3), Ann Mancuso of Dumont appears to believe Christie, who said he was kept in the dark by his staff and Port Authority appointees:

"I voted for Christie twice, but I will never again vote for someone who doesn't know what's going on in his own office. At the least, it's annoying and at the most, it's darn dangerous."

View from Fort Lee

Mark Sokolich, Fort Lee's Democratic mayor, has called "the scheme to wreak havoc on Fort Lee's citizens 'absolute power corruption,'" The Record reported on Jan. 9.

E-mails and text messages between Christie loyalists that were revealed on Jan. 8 "suggested there was a calculated plot to cause mayhem in Fort Lee," the paper said.

One e-mail exchange referred to Sokolich as the "little Serbian," even though he is of Croatian descent, and "an idiot."

Lawyers always win

In Fort Lee, the mayor is said to own or have an interest in GW Car Service LLC, one of the cab companies that filed suit against Christie's staff, alleging they lost business during the lane closures, as reported by The Record on Tuesday.

Staff Writer Kibret Markos incorrectly called the suit a "class action," a designation that can be granted only by the judge hearing the case.

The Record still hasn't reported how much taxpayers will have to shell out for all of the high-priced legal talent being pressed into service by state legislators investigating the GWB scandal and by the Christie administration defending its actions (A-1 on Saturday).

More chopped liver

The death of a "person" in a collision on Route 20 is treated as a photo-op on Saturday's L-1 -- with no identity provided -- as is typical of the filler Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza relies on in the absence of legitimate news.

Food coverage on the Better Living cover Saturday appeared to be based on press releases, which were handled by her eminences, Food Editor Esther Davidowitz and Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung.

The free publicity ranged from the sublime (a $130 cocktail served at Grissini Restaurant in Englewood Cliffs) to the ridiculous (the crappy White Castle beef "slider," which costs 74 cents). 

Wasting readers' time is nothing new for Ung, who reviewed the mediocre Haven Riverfront Restaurant & Bar in Edgewater in Friday's Better Living tabloid (BL-14).

Today, in a column that is supposed to deal with consumer issues, she purports to explain "why certain locations spell doom for restaurants" (BL-1).

In Travel, there is little more than a seemingly endless account of a honeymoon trip by two staffers, Stephanie Akin and Shawn Boburg, both of whom are involved in Bridgegate coverage (T-1).

Akin and Boburg were an item in the old Hackensack newsroom, but she appeared to be a fashionista while he dressed like a country bumpkin.

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Readers find little under the tree from the newsroom

The elegant bell tower of St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic Church on Lodi Street in Hackensack, where services are held in English, Italian and Spanish, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The Record's entire front page today looks back, not forward.

The major elements on Page 1 are the editors' way of saying they are far more fascinated with the past than with imagining what our future could be.

Two of the three stories are about NJ Transit and the Port Authority, but there is nothing here for commuters hoping for improvements in mass transit that could help relieve worsening traffic congestion.

This is triumph?

The photo package celebrates "North Jersey's triumphs [and] tributes of 2013."

Is that it? Is that the best North Jersey did?

The big photos show a high school football player, a singer who didn't win "The Voice" and the manager of a Moonachie restaurant that reopened after being destroyed by Superstorm Sandy (A-1).

View from Ridgewood

Don't miss the silly editorial on A-22 or the letter from Bob Hutton, a well-off Ridgewood resident who does a good imitation of being a Tea Party crackpot.

Hutton calls "taxation ... a redistribution of wealth."

Let's see. Property taxes go to pay for schools, police and fire protection; garbage pick-up and, if you live outside Hackensack, street paving.

How is that a redistribution of wealth?

The truth is Governor Christie broke the promise he made during the 2009 campaign to lower local property taxes, and he's made a mess of state finances by, among other things, refusing to tax millionaires.

More on the rich

The Local section today brings us yet another story about the nasty public battle between millionaires over the huge Hudson News inheritance.

Staff Writer Kibret Markos is true to his background as a lawyer, giving readers a tedious legal lesson as part of his overlong story on a trial that started in September, but has roots in an action filed in 2008 (L-1).

Markos and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza have put so much time and effort into covering this case they've ignored a surge in age-discrimination lawsuits and just about everything else going on at the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack.


Dismiss columnists

When is someone going to tell Bill Ervolino that his funny stand-up routine doesn't translate into text, and that readers are sick and tired of endless stories about his parents on Long Island (BL-3)?

Readers would really have something to celebrate, if The Record of Woodland Park dismisses Ervolino and just about every other white male columnist -- Mike Kelly, the error-prone John Cichowski, Charles Stile et al. -- and gave us fresh voices in the new year.

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Booker and The Record are pissing off Democrats

The Statue of Liberty.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

I still haven't forgiven Newark Mayor Cory Booker for putting his personal ambitions ahead of the crying need to defeat Governor Christie, the GOP bully whose myth making is aided and abetted by The Record of Woodland Park.

Fresh from his victory in the special U.S. Senate election, Booker greeted Christie enthusiastically at a supermarket groundbreaking in Newark on Thursday -- and The Record's columnists were all over the story. 

Charles Stile, the incompetent screwball who writes about politics, has two columns today on the so-called meaning of the election results, and how Booker and Christie "locked in a warm man-hug" (A-1 and A-6).

Stile doesn't explain how a "man hug" is different than a regular hug, and conveniently omits mention of all the damage Christie's conservative polices caused in Newark and the state.

Christie's cuts in state aid forced Newark to lay off more than 200 police officers, and he's vetoed everything from a hike in the minimum wage to the millionaires' tax to legislation allowing gay marriages.

Too many columns

So much for Christies' repeated claim to have worked with Democrats in the state Legislature, and The Record's endless reporting about "bipartisanship."

Meanwhile, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin claims in his column today that the good showing of Lonegan, the crackpot former mayor of Bogota, is a win for Republicans (A-23).

It didn't help that The Record used the word "passion" to describe Lonegan's extremism and racism in his campaign against Booker.  

Why two columns on the results of the U.S. Senate contest, and no town-by-town, county-by-county tally for the election?

Let's hope Booker uses his time before he takes his seat in Washington to campaign for Barbara Buono and help the Democratic challenger further expose Christie's war on the middle and working classes.

Suit settlement

In Hackensack news, Local reports a $495,000 settlement in a sex harassment suit filed against Construction Official Joseph Mellone and City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono (L-1).

Marcella Sbarbaro, a former clerk-typist in the Building Department, claimed that Mellone forced her to have sex under threat of losing her job, and that Lo Iacono allegedly did nothing to stop the harassment.

Thanks to Production Editor Liz Houlton, the "Queen of Errors," a sub-headline and text say the woman filed her suit in 2011, but later the story says Sbarbaro "sued the city in April 2010."

Another screw up is acknowledged in an A-2 correction today.

The L-1 story doesn't say when the settlement was filed, meaning Staff Writer Kibret Markos, the Bergen County Courthouse reporter, probably missed it while he covered the Hudson News inheritance battle full time. 

Sinking feeling

Staff Writer Elisa Ung's review of Pier 115 Bar and Grill in Edgewater gives readers a queasy feeling from the first paragraph.

When the first half of her appraisal discusses parking, the view and the beer selection, the overpriced food must suck.

You also have to wonder about Ung's concept of dinner when she actually orders a $19 pretzel.

Despite all of the problems she encountered, she insists the view of the Hudson River saves the place.

But the sad history of another waterfront restaurant in Edgewater, the Binghamton ferry boat, forever put to rest that canard -- or so I thought.

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Media's focus on political conflict turns off voters

The clubhouse at Liberty National Golf Course in Jersey City.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

The shockingly low voter turnout in Wednesday's special U.S. Senate election -- less than 25 percent -- tells you one thing:

When The Record and other media devote big chunks of Page 1 to the rantings of radical U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Tea Party crackpot Steve Lonegan, voters are turned off and don't even show up at the polls.

How many times during the government shutdown did Cruz claim "millions of Americans are being hurt" by the Affordable Care Act, and not a single reporter challenged the Canadian-born senator?

Booker victory

Today's front-page coverage of the election of Newark Mayor Cory Booker over Lonegan, 55 percent to 44 percent, was another close call for Democrats (A-1).

Readers who wonder how Lonegan got elected mayor of Bogota should meet a Teaneck woman who says she always finds the book she wants at the Bogota library, because no one in the town knows how to read.

But The Record has forgotten or ignores the $24 million Governor Christie squandered to keep Booker off of the Nov. 5 gubernatorial ballot, fearing the popular Democrat would help boost challenger Barbara Buono to victory.

Parents' plea

The Local front today is dominated by the campaign of  Emil and Manal Sous to get passage of a bill in the state Legislature dubbed "Michelle's Law" that would require drivers involved in fatal accidents to undergo blood and urine screenings for drugs and alcohol (L-1).

The driver of a car that struck and killed their daughter Michelle in front of her North Haledon home on March 17 was never charged with a crime or even issued a summons.

The parents' campaign seems reasonable, but The Record has for years reported pedestrian fatalities without ever asking whether criminal laws should be revised to make a driver pay for killing someone.

On too many occasions, drivers tell police they "didn't see" the pedestrian, and survivors have only civil lawsuits as recourse.

Bikes, not equality

On L-2 today, a story reports that Englewood is asking the state for money to install bicycle lanes city officials hope will lure cyclists to its struggling downtown for coffee or lunch.

It's hard to believe the wealthy city can't find $120,000 to create the lanes without state help, or that it even costs that much to paint parallel lines.

Maybe Mayor Frank Huttle III, who is married to a state assemblywoman, should be asking the state for help in desegregating its elementary and middle schools, not screwing around with bike lanes. 

News for the 1%

Staff Writer Kibret Markos continues to ignore everything else going on at the Bergen County Courthouse, one of the state's busiest, to cover the Hudson News inheritance battle (L-3).

In major Hackensack news, a man was arrested "on suspicion of setting fire to an apartment door" (L-3).

In a pitch to readers who have high cholesterol and are proud of it, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung obsesses over a "maple bacon doughnut" (BL-1).

Second look

In his Sunday column, Road Warrior John Cichowski provided eight "misleading or false answers" to 17 of his own questions about New Jersey roads -- that's nearly 50 percent.

In an e-mail to management, the editors and the clueless reporter himself, a concerned reader even pointed out Cichowski forgot his own extensive reporting on ways to cross the Hudson River without paying a toll or fare.

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

Is John Cichowski really that stupid?

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Mysterious removal of Ridgewood dirt is big news

Cubby's BBQ in Hackensack got a new sign last week, and now the steakhouse and ribs crib is offering "fresh salads."

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor


Few local news editors can compete with The Record's Deirdre Sykes.

Sykes, the long-time head assignment editor, has ordered photos of nearly every fender bender and non-fatal rollover accident in North Jersey, and her shots of downed utility poles may soon be submitted for a Pulitzer Prize.

Pole vaults

Today, like a dog sniffing for the urine of other canines, Sykes found big news in the removal of "several inches of soil around the base" of utility poles in Ridgewood (Local front).

The village's wealthy residents have few worries, but they've been obsessing lately over the installation of taller and stronger utility poles, and Sykes has ordered comprehensive coverage of the brouhaha.

Apparently, some Ridgewooders or Ridgewoodians have become alarmed about "staining that appears at the base of several recently installed utility poles," according to a PSE&G spokeswoman quoted on L-1 today.

This is a huge environmental story, and Sykes and her right-hand man, Dan Sforza, deserve kudos for another example of muckraking local journalism.

A fish called Marty

Another amazing local story appears on Page 1 today, where Editor Marty Gottlieb seems to be fascinated by a retiree who caught a fish from the Amazon in Passaic's Third Ward Veterans Memorial Park (A-1).

This story deserves a few paragraphs at best, but it grows and grows just like the length of a fish does in a good fish story.

Christie lover

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes can't say enough good things about Governor Christie, whom she appears to idolize.

Now, readers are doing a double take at her assertion in the first paragraph of an A-3 story that the GOP bully "has been open about his weight struggles."

This about a governor who has refused to disclose how much he weighs, and who hid his weight-loss surgery from the media until it was over.

A strong smell

And while The Record has endorsed Christie's "Stronger Than the Storm" campaign, an attorney at the Fair Share Housing Center in Cherry Hill notes:

"In Ocean County alone, 26,000 people are still displaced from their homes" (A-9) -- nearly a year after Superstorm Sandy.

Rich v. poor

The Local front today carries another long story about the Hudson News inheritance battle being waged by multimillionaires in Superior Court in Hackensack (L-1).

Staff Writer Kibret Markos continues to hammer home the contrast between plaintiff Samantha Perelman and defendant James Cohen, "and the everyday banality of medical malpractice, auto accidents and negligence cases."

Reporter ventures out

The byline of Staff Writer John Cichowski appears on L-2 today without his thumbnail Road Warrior photo and column logo.

To show how of out touch Cichowski is with the realities of traffic congestion, his first sentence is padded with a ridiculous statement:

"A state Assembly panel braved northern Hudson County's busy urban traffic Monday."

In his Sunday Road Warrior column, Cichowski also demonstrated his ignorance that traffic jams are everywhere when discussing a single intersection, according to a concerned reader's e-mail:

"Road Warrior falsely hypes traffic problems at Hackensack's Polifly Road and a Route 80 west exit, which he seems to be unaware of is just like dozens, if not hundreds, of intersections in Bergen County with similar traffic congestion.

"He also fails to realize that the increase in traffic accidents in this area was due to the significantly increased traffic, which he frequently reported was aggravated by the closure of the Route 17/Summit Avenue exit for more than 2 years.

"Road Warrior is not embarrassed to suggest some crazy ideas for this intersection, including a bridge flyover and red-light monitors, which even the Road Warrior's reporting shows is not supported by any crash reports, experience of local law enforcement officials or traffic safety engineers."

 
To read the full e-mail to the editors, click on the following link to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior is on the blink again


Elder news

See today's Better Living cover for a rare story about seniors who don't live in nursing homes (BL-1).

Unfortunately, The Record fails to tell seniors that some supplemental Medicare polices include a free membership in 24 Hour Fitness, Gold's and other gyms under the Silver Sneakers program.

  
Related articles

• Newsroom mystery: Where is Editor Deirdre Sykes?
• In wealthy Ridgewood, size doesn't matter
• Editors obsess over the wealthy and well-off

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Editors obsess over the wealthy and well-off

Hackensack residents continue to see the property tax burden shifting to them as Bergen County embarks on a mini building boom. Construction has begun on a new Justice Center and a few blocks away, on a maintenance and fuel-storage depot, above, opposite the county homeless shelter. Both will be tax exempt.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Laboring under Production Editor Liz Houlton, The Record's copy editors still haven't mastered the art of headline writing, as today's Page 1 story on household income demonstrates.

"N.J. may have turned a corner"

Why use the weak phrase "may have"? Did it or didn't it?

And "N.J." only shows the editors' bias for the wealthy, because, as the second paragraph reports, "the number of people in poverty rose" to 934,900 from 897,400.

Another error

There is a second copy editing problem on Page 1 today -- a misplaced time element in the first paragraph about the World Trade Center brand name.

The $10 sale of the brand name was shameful "nearly three decades ago," not "on Wednesday."

The paragraph should have begun, "The Port Authority's top executive on Wednesday called ...."

Of course, the story doesn't say whether the Port Authority will use any of the money recovered through an investigation to expand mass transit or slow the pace of toll increases.

Ridgewood, Queens?

What is a Ridgewood story doing in the A-section, which is usually reserved for state, national and international news (A-8)?

On that same page, the photo caption writer failed to say the skyline is in Manhattan.

A pack of lawyers

More news of the wealthy appears on the front of Local, with another long story about the legal battle over the estate of Hudson News founder Robert Cohen (L-1).

And all of these words were triggered by "pretrial motions."

Two big photos shows the battling millionaires staring at the camera -- James Cohen of Alpine and his niece, Samantha Perelman, two spoiled silver spoons who have hired a total of 15 lawyers to duke it out in Hackensack.

How bored Cohen and Perelman look.

The breathless coverage is being provided by Staff Writer Kibret Markos, the full-time Bergen County Courthouse reporter who ignores 99.67% of the civil suits filed there and spends most of his time on smoking breaks outside the 10 Main St. entrance.

Slice of life

Want a good laugh?

Another L-1 story claims Mazur's Bakery was "the only place many residents of Lyndhurst and nearby communities have ever bought bread and cake."

That's ridiculous. Maybe it was the taste of "rodents, cats and insect, as well as encrusted flour and food debris on equipment" that made them so loyal.

More 'rich' news

The only expanded local obituary today is about a wealthy real estate executive, Stanley H. Marcus (L-6).

And no edition would be complete without a report on the millions of dollars in tax breaks Governor Christie is giving wealthy business owners -- with no job creation expected in return (L-8).

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