Edgewater's volunteer fire force is a big insult to residents

Fire consuming the 408-unit Avalon apartments on Wednesday, leaving more than 1,000 Edgewater residents homeless. The Cliffview Pilot.com photo was taken by Carmen Fuentes. Are residents ill-served by volunteer firefighters?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Residents in the booming Gold Coast town of Edgewater deserve better than a volunteer fire force that has failed to extinguish at least three spectacular apartment fires in the past 20 years.

More than 1,000 borough residents were displaced by Wednesday's fire, which was far more serious than what The Record conveys on Page 1 today.

Despite all the residential construction along Edgewater's Hudson River waterfront in recent years, the borough continues to rely on a Volunteer Fire Department instead of employing a professional force.

Are borough officials economizing at the expense of residents and other property tax payers?

First Avalon

The Avalon apartment complex gutted on Wednesday literally rose from the ashes of the original.

The complex was under construction in August 2000, when a fast-moving fire leveled two unfinished apartment buildings, nine nearby homes and 12 cars, according to NJ.com.

Wooden construction was cited as one reason the fire moved so quickly, destroying the buildings in a half hour.

Third fire

Another Edgewater apartment building closer to the Hudson was destroyed by fire in the 1980s, when volunteer firefighters responded, then left, not realizing flames were racing unimpeded through the space under the roof called the cockloft.

According to The Record, Edgewater's volunteer force on Wednesday was assisted by 11 other departments and five NYFD fireboats, but the inferno raged out of control.

"The fire spread to the north end of the complex, unchallenged in its advance, until firefighters from Hillsdale arrived at 8:15 p.m. and started pouring water on that section" (A-6).

Today's Page 1 photo of the Edgewater fire looks like a glamour shot of a firefighter; to see photos that encompass the breadth of the damage, check out Cliffview Pilot.com:

River Road reopens


Slippery slope

In his column on Tuesday, Staff Writer John Cichowski, aka Road Warrior, tried to advise readers on how to drive in icy conditions after Sunday morning's chain-reaction crashes.

Cichowski ignored discussing why anti-lock brakes and vehicle skid controls, which are found on most cars, didn't prevent the crashes or whether a single, out-of-control vehicle or a speeding driver caused the pile-ups.

He did advise drivers to stay two to three car lengths behind the car in front at 20 mph to 30 mph, but those are the safe distances on absolutely dry roads.

According to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"Traffic safety experts generally recommend at least 6 seconds of travel time between you and the car in front of you on snowy or icy roads.

"That would require around 180 feet at 20 mph and 280 feet at 30 mph.

"Road Warrior also quoted insignificant safety advice from an 'expert on icy conditions,' who slipped and broke his wrist, and a clueless driver, who crashed his car on an icy road."

See: Road Warrior's slippery slope for drivers

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Editors labor to make alleged campus rapes sound new

At 24 Hour Fitness in Paramus, the joke is on the able bodied. How likely is it that the owner of a tile-installation company qualifies for a handicap parking permit? I could be wrong. Do they issue them for mental handicaps?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Sexual exploitation of freshman women on college campuses has been a big concern for many years, but could this be the first time The Record has taken notice?

Editor Marty Gottlieb leads today's and Monday's front page with what a headline calls a "disturbing tale" at William Paterson University in Wayne.

Monday's Page 1 story tried to make the issue seem fresh, not something the editors have basically ignored:

"The arrest of William Paterson students on charges of sexual assault comes at a time when national concern about campus rape is growing," Staff Writer Jim Norman reported, years late, it turns out (Monday's A-1).

Bottom of barrel

Gottlieb had so little to put on Monday's front page he actually ran at least the third story since the Nov. 4 election on Governor Christie's out-of-state fundraising for GOP crackpots like himself.

Then, he used a big picture of the pope making nice with some patriarch in Istanbul -- an embrace that surely inflamed the many Armenian readers who will never forget the genocide of 1.5 million of their Christian ancestors under Ottoman rule.

Staff Writer Virginia Rohan polluted the bottom of Monday's front page with yet another story on bimbo Teresa Giudice.

More corrections

Today's A-2 carries a correction of Monday's front-page WPU story, in which the names of two suspects in the alleged rape were misspelled.

That's sloppy, but typical of The Record.

More 'Bloopers'

Uncorrected are the mistakes Road Warrior John Cichowski included in his Sunday column on blocked Little Ferry intersections.

Cichowski is so dizzy and disoriented, he misreported a) the location of two intersections and b) that the Little Ferry Circle is being rebuilt, when it has, in fact, been eliminated, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

1) Clueless false statement - "Two days before Thanksgiving, signs appeared on Route 46 — as if by magic — to warn motorists to avoid blocking intersections in Little Ferry that are generally jammed with traffic while construction crews rebuild a nearby bridge and traffic circle."

CORRECT FACTS - While construction is rebuilding the bridge, the traffic circle is being replaced with a four-way, stop light intersection.

The only magic is in the Road Warrior's exaggerated mind. Everybody else realizes that one day a portable sign is not there, and the next time they see a portable sign, it has been placed there by a road crew. No magic!

2) Clueless false statement - "Technically, Liberty and Grand were just east of the contractor's work zone."

CORRECT FACTS - Technically, Liberty and Grand streets were and are just west of the contractor's work zone for the Little Ferry Circle replacement on Route 46.

See: Road Warrior can't break gridlock of errors 

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How did the oil-train editor miss this huge development?

Growing traffic congestion on local roads and at the Hudson River crossings -- and the lack of mass-transit alternatives -- is among the untold stories of 2014 as Road Warrior John Cichowski continues to shoot himself in the foot with one inaccurate column after another. In his Sunday column, he identified the wrong group of drivers as being the second most vulnerable to crashes, and gave the wrong advice on how to position your hands on the steering wheel in the event you have to steer out of an accident.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Since July at least, The Record has published a steady stream of stories, opinion pieces and editorials on trains carrying potentially explosive crude oil through Bergen County towns.

But the assignment editors and environmental reporters missed a huge development a few weeks ago.

On Nov. 6, a front-page story reports today, the Christie administration "quietly approved" a permit that allows rail lines to carry billions of gallons of Canadian tar-sands oil "through densely populated towns, past thousands of homes and businesses" (A-1).

This is the same type of oil that would be transported in the Keystone XL pipeline. 

A bill to approve construction of the controversial project was defeated in the U.S. Senate a week ago.

Today's story doesn't mention the trains pass through Teaneck, where residents have demonstrated against the danger and the endless noise from engineers' horn blowing.

On Christie's train

Governor Christie has been dismantling the state's environmental protections since he took office in 2010, but the editors have been so busy grooming the GOP bully for a White House run they missed the DEP action on the tar-sands oil trains just two days after the Nov. 4 election.

Instead, in the days after the election, The Record published at least two stories by Staff Writer Melissa Hayes and a Charles Stile column on what a great job Christie did raising money for conservative Republican candidates in other states.

The Record's editors and reporters have been so giddy over the prospects that Christie might get the Republican presidential nomination they have neglected reporting, until very recently, what an awful job he is doing in New Jersey.

Second look

When you see a Road Warrior column in the paper, you can safely assume much of the information in it is incorrect.

The normal journalistic checks and balances are dispensed with in the editing of anything written by Staff Writer John Cichowski, and his many errors are rarely subject to published corrections.

In his Sunday column, for example, he incorrectly reported "baby boomer grandparents" are the second most vulnerable group of drivers on the road.

In fact, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers, drivers 65 and older, including those in their 70s, 80s and even 90s, are more likely to be involved in road crashes and fatalities.

"In his Sunday column, the Road Warrior provides a very dim-witted and mistake-filled report about how young drivers (under 21) and older drivers (over 64) are more susceptible to road crashes and fatalities, along with advice and resources that these drivers should heed.

"The worst thing the Road Warrior did was to report that AAA suggests that drivers should hold the steering wheel at the 7 and 4 o'clock positions instead of 10 and 2.

"AAA recommends that drivers should hold the steering wheel at 9 and 3 o'clock positions for safe road driving.

"They state that drivers may prefer a slightly lower hand position, closer to 8 and 4 o'clock, depending on personal preference and position of the steering wheel spokes.

"In fact, the AAA and so many traffic safety experts indicate that it is downright dangerous to hold the steering wheel at the 7 o'clock position since it does not give the driver full control of the steering wheel during any type of evasive maneuver to avoid an accident."

Click on the following link for more corrections:

Road Warrior accuracy continues to take a holiday

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Bergen's executive-elect can't get any respect from editors

I had an uneventful trip into the city on Veterans Day, boarding NJ Transit's No. 165 Local in Hackensack, above, and arriving at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan in under an hour.

The return trip on the 165 Turnpike Express to Hackensack and Westwood also went smoothly, but about 50 people lined up to board the bus, which left at 3:05 p.m., well before the rush hour started. The Record reported on Wednesday that lines at the antiquated terminal appear to be shorter.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's readers are witnessing a near-total breakdown in the checks and balances that produce an accurate and credible newspaper.

Today, Page A-2 carries the same correction it did on Tuesday -- a photo of Bergen County Democratic Chairman Lou Stellato was incorrectly identified as James Tedesco, the county's executive-elect.

This time, the photo of Stellato was a small thumbnail showing only his head -- apparently taken from the larger photo of the powerful pol that ran on Sunday -- but the double chin and glasses clearly set him apart from Tedesco.

The error likely was made by a lowly layout editor who was completely oblivious of the earlier embarrassing error with the larger Stellato photo in Sunday's Opinion section.

If you add these errors to the hundreds of uncorrected screw-ups in the Road Warrior column in recent years, it's a sad commentary on the editors' seeming inability to produce a reliable newspaper.

Forced busing

For example, on Wednesday, the front page carried a long story from transportation reporter Christopher Maag, heralding small changes that have eased afternoon rush-hour delays at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan.

For years, The Record's lazy transportation editor and reporters ignored those delays, but they were finally roused by angry letters from bus commuters at the end of last year.

Maag chose to observe at 5:30 p.m. Monday -- "the height of the rush hour" -- when, he says, "a few short lines formed and disappeared almost immediately into waiting buses."

Later in the story, he concedes "this week was an anomaly," given that some commuters may have stayed home for a four-day weekend that included Veterans Day on Tuesday.

So, can we rely on the story as an accurate reflection of improving bus terminal conditions?

The line for an express bus I took back to Hackensack on Tuesday at 3:05 p.m. had at least 50 people on it -- more passengers than seats. That's hardly "short."

Protecting Christie

In a front-page story today on the federal health insurance marketplace, there is absolutely no mention of how Governor Christie tried to sabotage the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act (A-1).

Instead of reporting Christie refused to set up a state exchange, as New York and Connecticut did, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn makes a vague reference to the "few state resources" that "are spent to encourage Obamacare signups" in New Jersey.

The GOP bully joined conservative governors in 35 other states in refusing to set up their own exchanges, overwhelming the federal exchange with millions of unanticipated applicants.

Genesis Rincon

A story on Paterson narcotics detectives confiscating 4,500 packets of heroin from two drug dealers reports they "were operating less than 200 feet from where 12-year-old Genesis Rincon was fatally shot riding her scooter last summer" (L-3).

Is there a connection?

Or is Police Director Jerry Speziale saying city police are doing a far better job confiscating heroin packets than they are preventing the murder of innocent young girls?

Why bother?

How many readers are going to try and get a reservation at Sergio's Missione, a shrine to Italian-American food in Lodi?

Today's lukewarm, 2-star review makes you wonder why The Record and Staff Writer Elisa Ung don't just cut their losses, and publish a few cautionary paragraphs?

The data box mentions a three-course early bird special for $15.95 that might be worth the detour, but there is nothing about it on the restaurant's Web site.

Ung, the paper's chief restaurant reviewer, doesn't say she sampled the meal, likely because the restaurant refused to serve her three dessert courses.

Second look

Last Sunday, Road Warrior John Cichowski tried to write a column correcting a previous report on the Graduated Driving License law (GDL), which requires red decals on the license plates of drivers 21 and younger.

But the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers says the befuddled reporter just made more mistakes:

"The Road Warrior continues to misreport that the estimated reductions in crashes were mainly due to red decal provisions.

"The study repeatedly indicated that while red decals could be an important component, the reductions were mainly due to multiple provisions in the 2010 GDL law, which also included the red decals.

"The Road Warrior reported the study indicated that the red decals yielded more safety advantages than disadvantages. This implies that the study mentioned a number of disadvantages.

"However, the study indicated there were no reported disadvantages due to the red decals."

See: Road Warrior's IQ continues to drop 

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Speeding trucker paralyzes region and editors shrug

Clues on this directional sign can tell you the town in which the intersection is located. The signs can be found all over New Jersey.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

For at least the past decade, The Record's editors have ignored speeding, tailgating and other aggressive drivers, and a dramatic decline in enforcement, especially on highways.

On Thursday morning, hours after a speeding trucker slammed into another tractor-trailer on the George Washington Bridge -- killing himself and paralyzing the region's traffic-- the clueless editors published a column on drowsy drivers. 

Today, even with more than 20 hours to work on the story of the 2 a.m. crash, the front-page map by Staff Artist R.L. Rebach looks like it was put together by a 4-year-old (A-1).

No New Jersey town is shown, not even Fort Lee, where officials coping with the resulting jams on Thursday could be forgiven for thinking Governor Christie was up to more of his dirty tricks.

But on the other side of the Hudson, the map shows the words "NEW YORK" and "New York City" stacked on top of one another.

Did anyone proof Page 1, the most important page in the paper? Where was six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, in bed?

Fat cats

The story on Christie's latest appearance on the "Tonight Show" is way back on A-9, where it belongs.

Should Alfred P. Doblin, editor of the Editorial Page, recuse himself when an important public policy issue affects his boss, Publisher Stephen A. Borg?

Fuhggetaboutit.

Today -- as the state's fiscal morass deepens, no thanks to Christie -- an editorial dismisses a senator's proposal to tax residents who make $350,000 a year or more (A-18).

Winging it

The clueless Road Warrior continues to make it up as he goes along, coining a strange acronym for NJ Transit ("NJT") and calling NY Waterway just "Waterway" (L-6).

In his Page 1 column on Thursday, Staff Writer John Cichowski, the confused reporter who writes the so-called commuting column, also "reported that a 2005 study showed that 18- to 19-year-olds were more likely to drive drowsy than other age groups," according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers. 

"The study actually reported that 18- to 29-year-olds were more likely to drive drowsy than other age groups."

Hey, that's only 10 years off. Maybe, he should get points and a bonus for trying to get it right.

That wasn't the only problem in the overlong column, which was padded with lots of stuff having nothing to do with drowsy driving. See:


 Road Warrior can't help making readers drowsy


Cold shoulder

In Better Living today, freelancer Julia Sexton pans the bistro fare served at Patisserie Florent in downtown Englewood.

Sexton brought a "shelf -temperature" bottle of white wine to the casual eatery, apparently expecting a bucket of ice to chill it, and in her data box, made a point of complaining none was available (BL-18).

At the end, a note informs readers "Elisa Ung's reviews will return Friday," but not whether she is having her stomach stapled or her coronary arteries cleared.

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Editor blesses Road Warrior, dismisses critics

In late 2007, Publisher Stephen A. Borg paid $3.65 million for this McMansion on the East Hill of Tenafly, using a mortgage from North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record, Herald News and (201) magazine. Several months later, Borg implemented the biggest downsizing in NJMG history. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When I was a news copy editor at The Record, Staff Writer John Cichowski, who began writing the Road Warrior column in late 2003, was among the reporters who couldn't be relied on to be accurate or complete.

More than a decade later, the Road Warrior column continues to peddle misinformation -- whether its about driving regulations and laws or North Jersey's troubled mass transit.

His workload -- three columns a week -- might have been to blame, and recently, he appears to have been cut back to only two, and most of those are based on inane questions and comments from readers who love seeing their names in print.

In the last two years or so, a retired engineer in Hackensack has been fact-checking Cichowski, something the editors of The Record don't do, and e-mailing critiques to Vice President Jennifer A. Borg, Editor Martin Gottlieb, Production Editor Liz Houlton and others, including the reporter himself.

Circles the wagons

Now, Gottlieb has come out swinging in defense of Cichowski and dismissed all criticism of his inaccuracies and faulty reporting over the last decade.

The e-mail is an example of the fortress mentality at The Record and many other newspapers, where editors and reporters regularly express contempt for complaining readers and refuse to appoint an ombudsman to deal with sloppy, inaccurate reporting and editing. 

Still, Gottlieb's e-mail only addresses a recent Road Warrior column about the midtown Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, which is across the street from The New York Times, where Gottlieb reported and edited for many years under much higher standards than he enforces at the Woodland Park daily.

Here is Gottlieb's e-mail to the Hackensack critic, who began the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

You have sent, by your count, more than 160 e-mails with complaints about the Road Warrior in less than two years. They have been filled with ad hominem attacks, inaccuracies, and nitpicks magnified to gargantuan proportions, all of which stand in complete contrast to the praise you heaped on the column after you asked for - and received - Mr. Cichowski's help several years ago. Quite frankly, I'm tired of this, and I have no interest in hearing from you or reading these defamations anymore.

Your first "clueless false statement" contends that the bus terminal, which opened in 1950, is not 64 years old because it opened in December and is therefore only 63 years old.... Please, by any fair standard, 1950 plus 64 is 2014, which is the year we're in now. Only someone with an irrational animus would make the point you do, much less at the head of a laundry list of supposedly serious errors.

Your second point is that there is a study going on about what to do with the bus terminal, and that this shows that Cichowski is wrong in saying "there is no relief in sight" for the run-down terminal. There is no relief in sight. The Port's recently passed $27.6-billion capital budget includes no CONSTRUCTION money for bus-station improvements. Port officials have told us there are no plans in place. A Port commissioner has argued against providing more assistance to a proposed office tower at Ground Zero when nothing is being done to meet the challenge at the bus terminal. John is right. You are wrong. You are reading an awful lot into a study months from completion that, at best, won't beget a remedy for years and years - in other words, for any time in sight.

Your points are not fair-minded. They are driven by an irrational hatred of the Road Warrior, despite your earlier solicitation of his help. I've stopped reading.

Sincerely,
Martin Gottlieb

In response to Gottlieb's e-mail, the Hackensack critic noted, referring to himself:

- The only things the critic hates is clearly false, misleading, or unsafe reports, and information that contradicts N.J. statutes. The Road Warrior columns continually contain some portions of these irresponsible items.

- Gottlieb seems to be in total denial about the extensive inaccuracies in around 80% (165) of the total Road Warrior columns over the past two years.

- The Road Warrior has regularly provided information and advice that has proven to be unhelpful, unsafe, or conflicting with New Jersey statutes, published studies that are the focus of his columns, transportation experts, New Jersey transportation and Motor Vehicle Commission websites, scientific evidence and facts from reliable sources.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Ex-Times journalist OKs fuzzy reporting

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Road Warrior column should be labeled 'FANTASY'

The Johnson Public Library on Main Street in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

There are plenty of news stories on Page 1 and elsewhere in The Record today, but on the Local front you'll find the musings of a madman who has to make it up as he goes along just to fill space.

The Record has been printing Road Warrior columns by Staff Writer John Cichowski based on false premises and false information for years now.

For more than a year, a retired engineer has been sending e-mails to everyone from Vice President Jennifer A. Borg on down with the results of his fact-checking, and posting those e-mails on a Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers.

Few of the hundreds of errors, distortions or omissions detailed in the e-mails have ever been corrected, and the columns are as cockamamie as ever.

Nut on the loose

Today, Cichowski puts himself in the head of a reader who heard about the loose wheel and tire that smashed through the windshield of a bus on Route 17, and wondered "what your chances are of being killed this way" (L-1).

Frankly, I didn't, but did wonder why news stories about the bus passenger who was critically injured by the flying wheel didn't say why it came off a fairly new car, a 2009 Lexus.

Still, Cichowski can't answer the question he poses, and can't find many examples of fatalities "in our own backyard."

Fast-food fatal

He goes all the way back to 1994 to find a high school senior killed by "a 200-pound tire that sailed off a tractor-trailer," but the victim wasn't in a vehicle.

He was walking into a McDonald's in Paramus. Thus, Cichowski inadvertently confirms many readers' belief that fast food can kill you.

(In the column, headlines and photo captions, "tire" is used interchangeably with "wheel," but, of course, he must be referring to a tire mounted on a wheel in nearly all instances.)

The next example of a flying wheel in Paramus didn't kill the driver.

And then Cichowski finds himself citing a fatal accident in Syracuse, N.Y.; and a double fatality all the way out in Indiana.

Lost in the woods

Then, having run out of fatal wheel-tire incidents, Cichowski reports on a smashed window at a car dealership, and a pickup's loose wheel and tire that rolled into the woods in Sussex County.

If it's possible, his column last Sunday on the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan was even worse, because Cichowski left out a crucial piece of information that would have exposed the addled columnist.

Cichowski dashed commuters' hopes that there is any relief in sight for them, if they use the obsolete bus terminal.

But he never mentioned a major, Port Authority funded study that began in mid-2013 to recommend plans for expanding or replacing the crowded terminal.

He also got the age of the bus terminal wrong and in one instance, the number of commuters who use it.

See:

Road Warrior John Cichowski is obsolete 

Hey, Editor Marty Gottlieb.

It's time to start labeling Cichowski's columns "FANTASY," if you are not going to force the turkey to retire.

Another loose nut

None other than Food Editor Esther Davidowitz is the author of a long, promotional story about Callahan's unhealthy hot dogs, now sold from a truck by Daniel DeMiglio, the third generation (Better Living cover).

Here is one editor who needs editing to stop her from cramming so many words and facts into one sentence.

She describes DiMiglio as "the dark-haired, super-energetic, currently Old Tappan, soon-to-be Fort Lee resident, who bided his time working in the NBA's entertainment division ...."

Sounds like a woman north of 60 who has the hots for a guy half her age.

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Another crappy column from a burned-out reporter

In Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and many other towns, as well as on state highways, hundreds of potholes like this one remain unfilled, and pose an obstacle course for drivers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

No. This post isn't about Staff Writer John Cichowski, whose Road Warrior column is known for hype, exaggeration and numerous inaccuracies, which may be caused by the aging reporter's confused state of mind.

This is about Mike Kelly, whose Page 1 column today in The Record is another in a series of unfocused, rambling pieces that is completely devoid of a point of view.

Kelly presents the usual set of observers and experts, publishes the usual quotes and calls it a day. 

Yet, readers have to look at his thumbnail photo's shit-eating grin, as if the reporter knows he is getting away with more crappy writing and reporting.

This "column" is indistinguishable from a news story (A-1).

Sloppy reporting

And he can't even manage to accurately quote the infamous e-mail that blew open the investigation into the George Washington Bridge lane closures, known far and wide as Bridegate, a word The Record refuses to use.

Kelly says Bridget Anne Kelly "suggested 'some traffic problems in Fort Lee.'"

But Kelly, who was Governor Christie's deputy chief of staff, didn't "suggest" anything.

In an e-mail to David Wildstein, who was Christie's crony on the Port Authority, she called for the lane closures in no uncertain terms:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Blame game

The report on the "internal" review commissioned by Christie places the blame for the lane closures on Bridget Kelly and Wildstein, and clears the GOP bully.

But it was met with widespread skepticism, and denounced as little more than a self-serving whitewash.

Today -- a week after the report was leaked to The New York Times -- Kelly the reporter cites a "debate" over descriptions of the former aide's personal life and her alleged relationship with Christie's campaign manager. 

Is anyone but Mike Kelly debating this? Isn't the real debate over whether Christie has lied about his knowledge and role in the lane closures from the beginning?

And if Mike Kelly is offended by the report's use of personal details, why does he repeat them in his column?

And why doesn't he act like a real journalist and call for Christie lawyer Randy Mastro to go before an ethics panel for dragging Bridget Kelly's personal life through the mud?

No news today

I know Sundays are "slow news days" and Monday's front page is usually filled with scene-setters and other canned copy.

But, really, are trimming trees around power lines so controversial that they are on the front page today (A-1)?

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza and the other supremely lazy local-news editors have these words on a save/get key:

"No other information was available."

Those words appear today in a photo caption on a fatal accident "early Sunday" on New Bridge Road in Teaneck (L-1).

The 29-year-old driver was killed, but The Record doesn't identify him or say whether he was speeding.

If Teaneck police wouldn't release the information, shouldn't the editors address that and not constantly cheat readers?

Deliberate distortion

In his Road Warrior column last Wednesday, Cichowski focused on a disabled man who lived in Union Township, and claimed he could be served by a proposed car service to get to his doctor in Hackensack.

But the man is in his 50s, and would be ineligible to use the service, which is for people 60 years old and older, according to a concerned reader.

This was no innocent oversight by Cichowski. 

It was deliberate distortion accomplished by omitting from the column both the man's age and the minimum age of people who could use the proposed service.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior gives false hope to disabled

See previous post

on Hackensack's new train shelter

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Christie plan freezes out commuters, taxpayers

A packed NJ Transit train heading for New York's Penn Station on Tuesday morning. Governor Christie isn't moving to improve or expand mass transit this year.

Property taxes keep going up in Hackensack and every other North Jersey community, but such services as the routine filling of potholes are seemingly neglected. Above, Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, near Summit Avenue.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

A columnist and editorial writer for The Record are so busy interpreting and analyzing what Governor Christie said in his budget address on Tuesday that they completely lost sight of what he didn't say about property taxes, tolls and mass transit (A-1 and A-8).

For the fifth year in a row, Christie won't be lowering local property taxes, as he promised to do in his 2009 campaign.

Nor will he do anything about rising tolls, increasing traffic congestion and packed mass transit.

The economy, stupid

Job creation? Boosting tax revenue and funding the state Transportation Trust Fund? They are not on the GOP bully's agenda.

Today's coverage of the Christie budget plan is superficial at best (A-1, A-6, A-7 and L-3).

The biggest laugh line is Columnist Charles Stile noting that Christie is an "admirer of Ghandi" (A-6).

And Stile continues to struggle with his writing and standard cliches, as in:

"[Christie] didn't call for a broad-based tax cut -- a recognition, perhaps, that the proposal would probably get laughed out of the room."

Not the proposal. Christie would probably be laughed out of room, given the sad state of the New Jersey economy.

Hackensack news

The lead story on Page 1 today is Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga's continuing crackdown on quality of life crimes and violations, in this case, drug dealing (A-1).

Tara Sullivan's column at the bottom of the front page shows the media are intent on covering every athlete who declares he or she is gay, no matter how obscure.

These so-called journalists should ask themselves why fellow staffers who are gay fear coming out, lest they encounter employment discrimination, in Woodland Park and elsewhere.

Locals are yokels

The Record's Local news report today includes a dramatic photo of one truck rear ending another in Fort Lee that injured "at least one person" (L-6).

Congratulations to Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi for this award-winning shot.

In his Sunday column, Road Warrior John Cichowski insisted on calling an obscure traffic circle in sleepy Franklin Lakes a "roundabout."

He also claimed a homeowner backing out of his driveway could see through shrubbery and trees and report on whether other drivers were stopping at a stop sign.

A concerned reader notes the homeowner could drive forward out of his driveway, but insists on the more dangerous maneuver of backing out:

"Unless this person has X-ray vision from his driveway entrance to the High Mountain Road stop line, which is blocked with multiple trees and dense shrubbery, he is not able to see whether cars stop while he is pulling out.

"What is even more outrageous is that his driveway is set up to allow him to turn around so he can more safely exit going forward. Yet, he has chosen for 50 years to back out, which is a much more dangerous maneuver."

See a link to a corrective e-mail to management and the editors on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers: 


Road Warrior's exaggerations go round and round

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Boring columnists are almost everywhere you look

As of Thursday afternoon, this sidewalk hadn't been cleared, even though it is between Hackensack High School and a pizzeria at First Street and Central Avenue that is popular with students who walk there during their lunch period. The New York City media is filled with critiques of snow removal, but similar reports never appear in The Record, once North Jersey's premier local daily paper.

The block of Euclid Avenue between Main Street and the railroad tracks resembled a country lane late Thursday afternoon. The city's policy of approving apartment buildings with insufficient off-street parking comes back to bite officials and residents after snowstorms.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Readers looking for something interesting and informative to read in The Record today are stopped dead by two boring sports columns on the front page (A-1).

On the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski complains NJ Transit's rail service "disappointed [Super Bowl] fans from around the country" -- this from a columnist who in a decade has never reported on the daily disappointment of North Jersey rail and bus commuters (L-1).

And in Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung is so reluctant to discuss the tough filet mignon and other poorly prepared food at the pricey Zestt in Tenafly, she squanders the first half of her column on the owner's resume and the decor (BL-14).

No editing

The abysmal lack of editing is evident in Tara Sullivan's Page 1 column, which declares that a text message from an athlete left her former male coach with "his insides quivering, his heart exploding."

The only three words that would cause such a reaction are,  "I love you!"

Cichowski's columns swung from non-fiction to fiction years ago, and he has probably committed more errors than any other single staffer in the history of the paper.

There also appears to be no editing of Ung's unfocused columns, as this meandering sentence from today's appraisal shows:

"A light, modern space accented with dark slatted chairs, the 45-seat dining room is laid back enough that you can show up in jeans by yourself or go out with several bottles and friends [italics added] who don't need trappings like tablecloths or multiple hovering waiters."

What she needs are hovering copy editors.

Maybe, the dessert-obsessed reviewer gets drowsy from all that sugar, heavy cream and butter she stuffs her face with -- such as "an apple tart with a mealy crust" and "French chocolate cake ... a mousse-filled treat."

More fiction

Cichowski's Sunday column set a new standard for newspaper fiction, according to a concerned reader:

"In his Sunday column, the Road Warrior did a super job in one of his most embarrassing columns of all time with his most outrageously false, senselessly made-up, impossibly fictitious, and crazy, tall-tale descriptions about potential traffic jams on Super Bowl day.

"He repeatedly and endlessly prognosticated about so many traffic jams before, during and after the Super Bowl. He completely ignored all known TV and Internet news reports and predictions that completely contradicted his super flubs since most people going to the Meadowlands stadium were going to use mass transit and not passenger vehicles.

"Road Warrior also made false claims that people should have been worried about traffic jams driving to Manhattan or Newark Airport. He did not realize these people would be traveling four to five hours before game time when there would still be reduced traffic."

See the full e-mail to management and editors on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers: 

Avoiding Road Warrior's Super Toilet Bowl

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