Shit in driveway wasn't from dog walkers: The Record was delivered to us by mistake

READERS GET THE SHAFT: A report on the shutting down of nuclear reactors across the United States started on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park on Sunday and covered 5 full newspaper pages. Included were the bios of the 5 reporters for Gannett publications who worked on it. Loud yawns could be heard across northern New Jersey.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- The dog owners in my Fairmount neighborhood don't always do a good job of cleaning up after their pets, as  we can see from the occasional turd in the grass in front of our house.

On Sunday, however, the biggest turd I've ever seen was left in our driveway: 

The Record of Woodland Park, folded inside a plastic bag, was delivered to us in error.

I stopped subscribing to The Record more than a year ago (or was it two), but see the daily paper occasionally at the hospital where I volunteer.

So, I looked at the first Sunday paper I've seen in a long time with a critical eye, confirming once again how former Publisher Stephen Borg and Gannett have brought this once-great local newspaper to its knees.

The front page was wrapped in an ad for hearing aids, a desperate bid for revenue that was started by Borg years before the family unloaded North Jersey Media Group on Gannett in July 2016.

State budget news?

A week before Governor Murphy is supposed to sign the state budget, a battle over renewal of the millionaires tax continues to rage in the state Legislature, but there were no news stories about it in the Sunday paper.

As far as I know, The Record has never explored the millionaires tax as an issue, only as a showdown between the state's most powerful Democrats

The rest of the first section is filled only with international and national news -- a colossal waste of space in a local daily newspaper.

Readers go nuclear

In a desperate bid to grab readers attention, the nuclear power plant opus included a story on Page 12A under the headline:

"This could

affect your

wallet and

your health" 

As with most readers, I would imagine, my eyelids grew heavy.

The lead reporter on the nuclear plant piece was Thomas C. Gambito, a former Record reporter now with the Rockland/Westchester Journal News.

Debra Vial, Gambito's wife, was an assignment editor at The Record.

Now, she is the communications director in Paramus for Suez North America, the water company that levies hundreds of thousands of dollars in public fire protection fees on Hackensack and many others towns and cities.

Vial and other Suez employees have ignored repeated requests from this blogger, who also worked at The Record as a reporter and copy editor, for the fees paid by other municipalities.

Local news?

Sunday's 8-page Local section included 3 pages of obituaries or paid death notices, and a full-page ad.

The lead story on 1L was about gay cops (the headlines included the words "in New Jersey").

But there was not a single story from the 86 towns in Bergen and Passaic counties about municipal government, spending or policies.

Other sections

On the Better Living cover, staffer Rebecca King appeared to rewrite two news releases rating Newark Liberty International Airport as "the worst in America," but claiming the air hub is "best for foodies."

No prices were given, lest readers experience the same sticker shock of travelers who don't bring their own food, and have to buy some of the most overpriced fare in the world.

Better Living also included a USA Today travel article warning Americans going to Mexico to "proceed with caution."

Opinion

Remember the New Jersey budget battle?

In the Opinion section, Governor Murphy appeared as a guest columnist, noting the millionaires tax was passed five times by Democratic Legislatures in the eight years before he took office [and vetoed by then-Governor Christie].

The Record also has endorsed renewal of the millionaires tax. Murphy's column appeared under this headline:

"Why state budget must

put middle class first"

I'm sure almost no one read the piece on the front of Opinion on Sunday by burned-out Columnist Mike Kelly on failed legal pot laws in New Jersey and New York.

Kelly's been boring readers to tears for decades.

The rest of the paper, including Sports, went immediately into the recycling bin.

Read: Tombstones for great local journalism

STRAIGHT TO RECYCLING: Many of the sections of The Record on Sunday were suitable only for the recycling bin.

A $343,000 bill for 'fire protection' drives Hackensack taxpayers and officials crazy

WATER WORKS: A Suez water company crew at work on Passaic Street in Hackensack on May 7.

Suez charges New Jersey towns
millions for water mains, hydrants

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- In the annals of budget items that drive local taxpayers crazy, "fire protection charges" from the water company must be at or near the top.

Get this: 

Hackensack is obligated to pay Suez Water New Jersey more than $343,000 this year for "transmission and distribution" through water mains, and testing of fire hydrants.

Even though the city's Fire Department sends out its own personnel to check the 531 hydrants twice a year, Suez won't refund or credit the city for the more than $103,000 billed for the same service this year.

In fact, for the last decade or so, the Hackensack Fire Department has checked every hydrant and its flow twice -- when personnel install and remove markers that are used during the winter in the event snowfall hides them.

In effect, long-suffering city taxpayers are paying twice for fire protection.

'Investigating'

Asked about Suez's fire protection charges at a City Council work session tonight, City Manager Ted Ehrenberg said officials are "investigating."

He said he is hoping to have a discussion with the water company on possibly getting credit for the fire hydrant portion of the bill.

But Ehrenberg noted Fire Chief Thomas J. Freeman was turned down when he asked the water company about potential savings, in view of his department checking and servicing hydrants for roughly 10 years.

BPU authorizes rates

Suez's 2019 bill to Hackensack explains the charges are computed following a method established by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities for "public fire protection through water mains and fire hydrants."

They are $195.12 for each of Hackensack's 531 hydrants, for a total of $103,608.72; and $0.004 "per inch-foot of main," for a total of $240,180.98.

The grand total for Hackensack is $343,789.70.

"In New Jersey, maintaining fire hydrants are funded through local property taxes, not by ratepayers through utility bills, as outlined by the Uniform Fire Code (regulated by the state Department of Community Affairs)," a BPU spokeswoman said.

Teaneck pays more

Teaneck presumably pays more to Suez because the township is 6.22 square miles, compared to Hackensack's 4.34 square miles, and has 680 to 700 fire hydrants.

Teaneck Fire Chief Jordan Zaretsky said firefighters do not check hydrants, and haven't done so in his roughly 25 years with the department.

Other Bergen County towns with substantial "public fire protection" bills from Suez are Paramus (10.52 square miles); and Englewood (4.93 square miles). 

Non-Suez systems

Ridgewood covers more than 5.8 square miles, but the village owns its water system so doesn't have to pay Suez for fire protection.

That's also the case in Paterson, Passaic and Clifton, three large cities in Passaic County that own the Passaic Valley Water Commission, a public water supplier to those and other municipalities.

No comment

I have been trying to obtain comment from Suez for more than two weeks, but Debra Vial, the Paramus-based company's communications director, has ignored several voice messages left on her landline.

Vial was an assignment editor at The Record for many years before joining Suez.

The Hackensack Water Co. was founded in 1869 and later named United Water. Suez bought United Water in 2000.

Suez North America boasts 3,430 employees, 16,000 industrial and municipal customers, and revenues of $1.1 billion.

The company, based in France, says it provides water and waste-recycling services to more than 7.5 million people in the United States and Canada.

'Fake news' Trump knows debunking his lies can take days, weeks or even months

Daily News front pages from July 17, above, and July 21, 2018, below, ran with a New York Times report on layoffs at the tabloid, which "positioned itself as an unapologetically liberal counterpuncher to Rupert Murdoch's New York Post," according to The Times.

The biggest shock in the announcement was not that the newsroom staff would be cut in half and that the editor in chief was out of a job. It was the small number of employees involved -- "more than 40 ..., including 25 of 34 sports journalists and most of the photo department," The Times reported, at what once was the largest-circulation paper in the country.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- "President Trump often cries 'fake news' when he doesn't like what's being reported even when he knows it's the truth," The Washington Post says.

"For example, Trump said he knew nothing about any hush money paid to ... alleged mistresses Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal during the 2016 campaign," The Post's Fact Checker reported on Friday, adding:

"But we later found out that he did know.

"Trump claimed he had no role crafting his son's misleading statement about a meeting with a Russian lawyer during the campaign. But his attorneys later conceded Trump had dictated his statement.

"The moral of this story is that some of Trump's claims can be fact-checked quickly -- say, when he cites spurious data -- but other claims, particularly those involving Russia, can be debunked only after reporters and investigators dig up a full factual record.

"The process can take days, week or months.

"It's easy to lose the thread, and there's a risk these types of claims will end up forgotten in a memory hole."

Confront Trump

As I've said many times before, one possible solution is for reporters to confront Trump and appeal to him to "stop lying to the American people."

But Trump seems to have the upper hand in every meeting with reporters, and when he doesn't want to answer a question, simply says, "Thank you" over and over again or insults the reporter.

Also, The Washington Post Fact Checker should stop calling Trump's lies "false claims." 

The White House press corps has only a few members willing to push Trump or his staff; instead they compete to see who can be first to disseminate the latest presidential lie or tweet.

Where are they now?

I occasionally see the name or byline of one of the staffers who fell victim to Gannett's purchase of The Record of Woodland Park in July 2016.

That was the beginning of the end for more than 350 employees at North Jersey Media Group, publisher of my local daily newspaper, which I no longer subscribe to.

In The Washington Post Fact Checker article I cited today, I saw a tagline for Salvador Rizzo, whose byline from Trenton often appeared in The Record.

And onetime Assignment Editor Debra Vial now is director of communications and community relations at Suez, the water company in North Jersey.

Daily News

More evidence that some newspaper print editions are just limping along came in last week's announcement of layoffs at the Daily News.

The New York tabloid's newsroom apparently contained fewer than 90 employees, including photographers and sports reporters.

The New York Times reported that laying off half the newsroom involved "more than 40 employees." I would have said "only about 40 employees."

This at a tabloid that once circulated in the millions, and in May 2o16 still was the ninth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States.