Suez defends millions of dollars in charges to N.J. towns for 'public fire protection'

WATER WORKS: Suez North America headquarters are on From Road in Paramus, above and below.

GOING TO THE SOURCE: I had been trying to get Suez North America to comment after Hackensack officials complained in June about their bill of more than $343,000 for "fire protection." So, I went to Suez headquarters without an appointment, cooled my heels in the waiting room and finally was given the cellphone number of the company spokeswoman, who said she was on the road. On Friday, she emailed me what I needed.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- When a vehicle struck a fire hydrant and ruptured a water main in Fort Lee, the water company immediately dispatched a repair crew.

"The cost was substantial, but the safety of that block depended on a working hydrant," Debra Vial, spokeswoman for Suez North America, said on Friday. "We are always on call."

The cost of the repairs were $38,741.27, she said, defending the charges to Hackensack and other towns for "public fire protection."

"We work every day ensure that the 16,226 hydrants in our system and all of the infrastructure to support them are always ready whenever and wherever a fire erupts," Vial said.

"This is critical to keeping our communities safe. As part of our commitment to the communities we serve, rates for hydrants are lower now than they were in 2010."

Hackensack's bill

As I reported on June 11, Suez's charges for "public fire protection" are $195.12 for each of Hackensack's 531 hydrants or $103,608.72; and $0.04 "per inch-foot of main" or $240,180.98.

The total bill for Hackenack in 2019 is $343,789.70.

Read: A $343,000 bill for 'fire protection'

 drives taxpayers and officials crazy

Testing of hydrants

Specifically, Hackensack officials are upset about the $103,608.72 in charges for hydrants.

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

"The charge represents far more than the maintenance and testing of hydrants," Vial said.

"It includes the cost of providing the overall operation, maintenance and infrastructure necessary to ensure a robust system capable of providing the adequate pressure and capacity needed to fight fires.

"For example, we must build and maintain enough storage to handle the additional volume and pumps to deliver at a higher capacity that what is needed for domestic services only."

Other towns

Teaneck presumably pays more to Suez, as do Paramus and Englewood, all of which are larger than Hackensack and have more hydrants.

Ridgewood, Paterson, Clifton and Passaic all own their own water systems, and do not pay Suez for fire protection.

Vial, the Suez spokeswoman, said if I wanted a list of New Jersey towns and what they pay Suez, I should ask the state Board of Public Utilities, which sets the fire-protection rates.

SUEZ CANAL: In the waiting room, below, you can watch a video on the origins of the one of the world's biggest suppliers of clean water and waste-recycling services.

BASED IN FRANCE: Suez says the company provides water and waste-recycling services to more than 7.5 million people in the United States and Canada.

SUEZ ADVISORY: A sign in the company's 4th-floor men's room asks you to "please be considerate of the next person and clean up after yourself." Given the large number of slobs, litterers and smokers who toss butts out of car windows, I'd love to see signs like that all over northern New Jersey.

Trump's crazy train or daily D.C. shit show has the world mocking the United States

Graffiti on a building in Mary Ellen Kramer Park at the Great Falls in Paterson.

In N.J., The Record reduces

Bergen County news even further

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

Editor's note: The Celebrity Birthdays feature on Page 6BL in today's Better Living section notes "film producer Harvey Weinstein is 66." I guess even sexual predators deserve a listing. See a reader's comment at the end of this post.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A cornered President Trump is lashing out again on Twitter at Special Counsel Robert Mueller, a fellow Republican.

Mueller is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, as well as the finances of the Trump Organization, the 500 real estate and business entities of which the president is the sole or principal owner.

Late Friday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, less than two days shy of McCabe's retirement.

Like fired FBI Director James Comey, McCabe has handed over to Mueller memos documenting his conversations with the president.

Meanwhile, "60 Minutes" plans to air an interview with adult film star Stormy Daniels next Sunday.

She has offered to return $130,000 in hush money she was paid to keep quiet about her affair with Trump in 2006 after Melania Trump gave birth to their son, Barron.

Daily shit show

What a daily shit show Trump is putting on in Washington, D.C., turning our democracy into a laughing stock around the world.

No president has been tarred with so much scandal or has proven to be such a loose cannon -- insulting others and praising himself in an endless stream of lies the news media seem obsessed with spreading around the world.

'A scam ... a fraud'

Also on Friday, The New York Times and The Observer of London reported a voter-profiling company called Cambridge Analytica "harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission...."

"The breach allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President Trump's campaign in 2016."

"This was a scam -- and a fraud," the social network said in a statement.

Editorial cartoonist Kevin Siers of The Charlotte Observer commenting on the firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former CEO of Exxon Mobil.

Rick McKee, editorial cartoonist at The Augusta Chronicle, capturing the chaos of the Trump administration.

Many observers are betting the meeting between President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un will never come off or that the two leaders are so illegitimate, nothing will come of the summit, says editorial cartoonist Nate Beeler of The Columbus Dispatch.

Local news?

I could not find a single local-news story from Bergen County in The Record's Local section on Saturday, with the exception of a police brief on a missing Paramus woman.

This from a local daily newspaper that began life as The Bergen Record, and is still called that by many older readers, decades after it became just The Record.

On Sunday, even Mike Kelly's column on the Opinion front (1O) was about Paterson.

The Record's local-news operation was on life support when the Gannett Co. took over from the Borg family in July 2016, and slashed the payroll of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of daily and weekly papers, and (201) magazine.

Now, residents of the 70 Bergen County communities can go days or weeks without seeing any news of their town.

Legal marijuana?

Gannett's reporting is weakest when trying to predict the future, as James Nash did on Sunday's Page 1.

Nash questioned whether the state Legislature will approve a bill to legalize marijuana by the June 30 deadline, and if it does, whether the state can develop rules by July 1, 2019, when weed would be sold to anyone.

Instead of speculating about the future, why doesn't Nash and other reporters write balanced stories seeking opinions on each side of issues such as legal marijuana, taxing millionaires and so forth.

Bylines

In redesigning The Record's print edition, Gannett eliminated the "by" in reporters' bylines.

Now, a reporter's name appears in boldface type and the publication appears next to it.

But "The Record" has been eliminated in favor of a fictitious publication, "North Jersey Record."

So it's no surprise #gannettruinedmypaper is appearing more and more on social media.

I'm waiting for who will tell Trump to his face: Stop lying to the American people

Cartoonist R.J. Matson on the influence of President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, above. And here's cartoonist Dave Granlund's take on the Liar-In-Chief's first 100 days in office, below.

PLUS: THE RECORD'S HALF-ASSED JOB COVERING ELECTIONS IN HACKENSACK 

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

I doubt the first reporter to confront President Trump on all of the lies he's been telling will come from the demoralized White House press corps.

And The Record of Woodland Park has recently stopped running Page 1 stories about the president's Tweets and public statements, nearly of all of which are filled with falsehoods, exaggerations and distortions.

On April 4, The Washington Post's Fact Checker took a look at "President Trump's six flip-flops in less than 24 hours."

Thanks to the news media, Candidate Trump got away with every lie, "alternative fact" and "truthful hyperbole" during the 2016 campaign, allowing him to win the White House on a technicality.

Since he was sworn in as president nearly 100 days ago, little has changed. 

Our illegitimate president continues to exaggerate his showing in the Electoral College, while ignoring his loss of around 3 million popular votes.

See Addicting Info, a website that was started to "discredit all the lies and propaganda that the right- wing spreads."

Hackensack elections

It's only a week until the school election in Hackensack, but The Record still hasn't reported on any of the issues involved or given details of the $109 million Board of Education budget.

Next Tuesday, voters have the opportunity to vote "yes" or "no" on the $81.2 million tax levy, plus choose among four candidates vying for three seats on the school board.

So far, Staff Writer Rodrigo Torrejon, who covers Hackensack, hasn't said a word about what the candidates stand for.

If past elections are any guide, fewer than 1,500 of the city's 20,000 registered voters will cast ballots, and the budget will be approved.

School taxes comprise 44 percent of every resident's property tax bill.

City Council race

Today, on the Local news front, Torrejon reports three slates competing for 5 seats on the Hackensack City Council will present "their platforms and field questions at a private event at an apartment building on Prospect Avenue" (1L).

That will be similar to a campaign forum held in 2013, when Mayor John Labrosse and his slate of reformers were elected.

But The Record hasn't reported on the platforms of the slates in the May 9 municipal election, when the Labrosse Team is seeking re-election.

Today's paper

Page 1 today carries two major stories from Paterson, which is covered in far more detail than any of the 70 communities in Bergen County, where the majority of readers live.

The lead story on the corruption charges against Paterson Mayor Joey Torres reports three co-defendants are being offered deals in return for their testimony against him (1A).

That's the way it's been done since time immemorial.

Let's hope starting tomorrow, Editor Richard Green and Paterson Press writer Joe Malinconico spare Bergen readers every single burp, cough and fart in the case against Torres in the year or two before he most certainly will be convicted.

The second Paterson story on Page 1 -- reporting Syrian refugees shared their experiences with fellow students at John F. Kennedy High School in Paterson -- was already the subject of an editorial that ran in Sunday's paper.

There's no explanation why the news story is running after the editorial instead of in the usual order -- news story first, commentary second.

Recycling news

Monday's front page was dominated by two stories that could have been written anytime in the last five years -- a so-called apartment building boom and the "out-of-towners" who buy drugs in Paterson.

That day's Better Living cover on Israeli violinist Miri Ben-Ari, 38, contained a bizarre reference to the Holocaust.

Freelancer Jackie Goldschneider identified Ben-Ari as "a third-generation Holocaust survivor" (Monday's 2BL).

Huh? If I follow that reasoning, I'm a first-generation resident of Aleppo, Syria, where my parents were born. (I was actually born in Brooklyn, N.Y.) 

Then, my friend Aaron would be a first-generation survivor of the Battle of the Bulge in World War II.

You get the idea. It's a ridiculous assertion to make for Ben-Ari or anyone else.

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