I am pleased that you have formally outlined The Record’s editorial policies. I am also happy to hear that you believe in freedom of speech, religion and the press, however I did not see that you are in support the Constitution or The Bill of Rights. You have stated that any group of citizens should not run roughshod over the best interests of the people as a whole
I also understand that the newspaper’s mission is not to please the public. According the recent to Gallop poll:
68% of Americans do not want to be “politically correct”.
70% of Americans say that the Government is too big.
68% of Americans are against Obamacare.
I feel that Obama is pathological lier. He has ignored our Constitutional separation of powers through the illegal use of Executive Orders or his illegal waivers of Obamacare’s dictates or his refusal to enforce immigration laws, and massive new regulations that are destroying capitalism, and my country that I have fought for.
I have yet to see an article on Obama and his Far Left agenda. I and the majority of Americans agree upon these is issues. You stated that the success of any democracy depends on a full debate of the issues, if they are printed.
JANUARY 4, 2016, 3:55 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2016, 7:04 AM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TRENTON — New Jersey was given a nine-month extension to have its drivers’ licenses meet national proof-of-identity requirements.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security last month extended the state’s exemption for Real ID requirements from Jan. 10 to Oct. 10, Motor Vehicle Commission spokeswoman Mairin Bellack said Monday.
Without the exemption, state-issued drivers’ licenses and non-driver IDs would not be accepted to get into most federal facilities, including military bases.
Bellack said the state had its exemption extended because it is taking steps to meet requirements of the Real ID act, including allowing more than nine characters of a name to be included and requiring people have their photos taken immediately upon reaching the counter to get a new license.
The 2005 Real ID act imposes tougher requirements for proof of legal U.S. residency in order for state driver’s licenses to be valid for federal purposes. The law was passed in response to national security concerns after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
States originally were supposed to comply with the Real ID requirements by the end of 2009. Federal authorities have repeatedly delayed implementation to give time for states to change their driver’s license procedures and make the necessary technological improvements.
At least five states were informed by Homeland Security last year that their extensions would not continue beyond Jan. 10.
JANUARY 4, 2016, 6:47 AM
BY JOHN CICHOWSKI
NORTHJERSEY.COM
Officer Tim Franco offered one final wish as he left his job for the final time last week.
“Cameras,” said Fair Lawn’s retiring traffic safety officer.
Most cops love recent improvements in law-enforcement technology, especially surveillance cameras that provide powerful evidence for documenting shoplifters, cheats, liars and worse. But Franco likes them for recording what happens at busy intersections.
“Not just crashes,” he said. “Close calls, too.”
Police usually know crash details from accident reports. But unlike pilots who must report close calls to aviation authorities, it’s rare for drivers or police to document events that almost happen – except when regaling colleagues or reporters about the harrowing experiences that nearly become the big events of their day.
But as Franco learned over his 31½-year career, these experiences have value beyond locker-room chatter.
That’s because workplace bean counters figured out years ago that there are about 30 close calls for each accident. If cops and engineers had access to a huge sample of these “what ifs,” as Franco calls them, they could be added to the small number of crashes they record. Doing so would add more precision to their ability to improve road safety – either through enforcement or through charges made in signage or the design of troublesome intersections.
“Right now, the system for gathering crash data is very limited,” Franco said. “But the camera technology exists to do a better job,”
In landmark shift, hospitals agree to fees in lieu of property taxes
JANUARY 3, 2016, 10:59 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 3, 2016, 11:00 PM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
For more than a century, New Jersey’s non-profit hospitals have been exempt from paying property taxes, despite relying on their communities to maintain local roads and provide police and fire protection. Now the state’s largest hospital association says its members are willing to make payments to towns they reside in — but many municipalities want more.
In a historic change, the New Jersey Hospital Association recently declared its support for a proposal in the Legislature to require non-profit hospitals to make “community service contributions” to municipalities. The move came after a tax court decision this summer that Morristown Medical Center was not entitled to its property-tax exemption because its operations were little different from those of a for-profit company. That hospital has since agreed to pay $15.5 million over 10 years.
Concerned that Judge Vito Bianco’s decision would lead to tax battles involving many other hospitals, the hospital association endorsed a proposal by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney. The measure would assess non-profit hospitals a fixed daily contribution — not a tax — of $2.50 per bed, to be used for public safety expenses or to reduce property taxes.
The association estimated that the payments from all of the state’s s would total $21 million to $25 million, including about $2.7 million annually from the six non-profits in Bergen and Passaic counties, if the measure is enacted as written. They are Hackensack University Medical Center; The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood; St. Joseph’s Healthcare System’s two hospitals in Paterson and Wayne; Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck. Hospitals owned by for-profit companies — HackensackUMC at Pascack Valley in Westwood and St. Mary’s General Hospital in Passaic — already pay property taxes.
JANUARY 1, 2016, 11:47 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2016, 11:58 PM
BY MARY DIDUCH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The red-and-white metal boxes, affixed to utility poles or the walls of large buildings, are relics of an earlier time — pieces of street furniture that are easily overlooked in North Jersey’s crowded suburban landscape.
Fire departments almost everywhere once relied on these call boxes as their primary means of learning about fires and other emergencies. The boxes have been slowly disappearing over the past three decades — many becoming collector’s items — as fewer departments see the value of maintaining a system that is prone to false alarms and, in the era of the cellphone, relies on century-old telegraph technology.
But some fire departments in New Jersey continue to use them. “We kept some of those basic systems because they still work,” said Chief Anthony Verley of the Teaneck Fire Department, which has paid firefighters. Little Falls, Hawthorne, Hackensack and Ridgewood also still use them.
For these departments and others, the appeal of the call box endures not despite its simple nature — the technology was developed in the late 1800s, and the boxes themselves and the wiring within can date to the 1930s or earlier — but rather because of it.
Call-box systems — firefighters often call them Gamewell systems, a shorthand derived from one of the better-known manufacturers — use very little electricity, making them reliable in the event of a natural disaster that knocks out the power grid. Ridgewood’s system, for example, runs on only 12 volts; six car batteries in the attic at fire headquarters can provide enough backup power to run the box network for days in the event of a widespread outage, fire Capt. Greg Hillerman said.
“We don’t need power, we don’t need anything. It’s self-sufficient,” Hillerman said, noting that during the Y2K scare, when blackouts were feared, and Superstorm Sandy, when much of the village lost power for more than a week, the call boxes were one of the few sure things around.
“It’s one of the rarest things you can think of when something 100 years [old] is more reliable than what they’ve come up with since,” Hillerman added.
Call-box systems are simple. The boxes — traditionally made of cast iron, though newer models tend to be cast aluminum — are attached to posts, poles or buildings. They’re numbered, and firefighters have records of where each box is located. When someone pulls a box’s lever — or if a smoke detector attached to a box triggers it — gears inside the box begin to turn and click, tripping a signal that’s transmitted to fire stations through a network of copper wires.
When the signal reaches a fire station, a bell chimes a number of times corresponding to the number of the box, telling firefighters where to go. A digital signal receiver also prints out the box location. Some departments, like Hackensack and Ridgewood, maintain manual receivers that predate the digital ones and punch triangular-shaped holes in long strips of paper, like Morse code, indicating where the emergency is.
In many cases, firefighters have memorized the numbers of certain boxes that are frequently pulled in their towns, as in hospitals or schools. Otherwise, the number must be looked up — on index cards in Teaneck, in large binders in Ridgewood, or on an oversized sign in Hackensack.
A Glen Rock resident who has prosecuted major white-collar crimes for the U.S. Attorney’s Office will be appointed acting Bergen County prosecutor on Monday, officials said. Mary Jo Layton, The Record Read more
DECEMBER 31, 2015, 9:50 AM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2015, 9:57 AM
BY STEFANIE DAZIO
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
WYCKOFF — A 39-year-old Hackensack man who allegedly recorded a co-worker using the bathroom at a Wyckoff business for up to two years was arrested Wednesday.
LAW ENFORCEMENT PHOTO
German G. Gonzales, 39, of Hackensack
German G. Gonzales is charged with invasion of privacy, Chief Benjamin C. Fox said in a statement.
His co-worker, a 56-year-old woman, saw Gonzales bend down near the bathroom sink, Fox said. While Gonzales said he was just picking something up off the floor, the woman later found a cellphone taped to a water supply line under the sink.
It’s the worst-kept secret in the Garden State: People are leaving the state in droves — New Jersey has the highest out-migration rate in the nation — and those who stay aren’t doing well.
But New Jersey is also the nation’s leader in another troubling, underappreciated category: Nearly half — 48 percent — of New Jersey’s young adults are living with their parents, more than in any other state.
Let that sink in. Tens of thousands of people in their prime — who should be building their dreams — are stuck in Mom and Dad’s basement.
Living with the parents means other dreams are being put on hold, like getting married, having a family or starting a business. As a millennial myself, I was fortunate to get married a few weeks ago. But 71 percent of young adults in the state have never been married.
Everyone has to accept disappointment in life, but far too many young New Jerseyans are getting used to disappointment being the status quo. And far too many families are literally being broken up as generations move out of state. I asked around recently — what’s life like in the Garden State for millennials?
“I’m living at home, have three degrees and can’t find a paying job anywhere! I’m currently working for free so I have some experience to put down on my résumé,” one 30-year-old attorney told me.
Don’t believe me when I say New Jersey’s economy is breaking up families? Then don’t take it from me, take it from a retired mother of three adult children, who said: “We have three kids living in three different states who will never return! They are asking us when we are leaving.”
Hudson City Saving in Glen Rock file photo by Boyd Loving
DECEMBER 29, 2015, 11:24 AM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2015, 1:15 PM
BY STEFANIE DAZIO
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
ORADELL — Police are investigating a bank robbery on Kinderkamack Road Tuesday morning where about $8,300 was stolen.
The Oradell robbery was the latest in a string of recent crimes at locations in Bergen County.
The man walked into the bank around 10:10 a.m., placed a black bag on the counter and told a teller to fill it up with cash, Capt. William Wicker said.
The man said he had a weapon, but did not say what it was or show it, Wicker said. Surveillance footage showed that he did not appear to have a weapon, Wicker said. The suspect fled on foot.
The man is described as black, 5’8” and 175 pounds and about 30 years old. He was wearing a black knitted hat, a gray sweatshirt, a gold scarf and khaki pants, Wicker said.
Authorities are investigating if Tuesday’s crime was related to bank robberies at Hudson City branches across the county in recent months. On Dec. 3, a man walked into a Lyndhurst branch in the Lewandowski Commons shopping center and told a teller to fill up a bag he’d brought with money.
DECEMBER 28, 2015, 12:02 PM LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2015, 11:09 PM
BY JAY LEVIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
he power of observation that informed the work of Ellsworth Kelly — whose innovative use of bold, geographic shapes and vivid colors established him as one of America’s leading abstract artists — was incubated in the rural Oradell of long ago.
Kelly, who died Sunday at 92, spent his boyhood in the Bergen County borough and enjoyed bird-watching at the Oradell Reservoir, an experience that helped him focus on nature’s shapes and kindled a passion for color and form.
Oradell, too, gave Kelly his professional moorings: His drawings — of daffodils, for instance, and George Washington and Abraham Lincoln set in profile against a Stars and Stripes backdrop — graced the covers of The Chirp, Oradell Junior High School’s quarterly literary magazine. Kelly himself credited a sixth-grade art teacher, Dorothy Opsut, with recognizing and encouraging his talent.
The artist, who counted Picasso and Matisse as influences, moved to upstate Spencertown, N.Y., after stints in lower Manhattan and Paris, but never forgot Oradell. A childhood friend, Frank Vierling, was the longtime borough historian, and when the Oradell Public Library embarked on a capital campaign to fund a renovation a decade ago, Kelly’s $50,000 was the largest gift.
When the library marked its centennial in 2013, Kelly, days shy of 90, was front and center at the celebration. Telling the crowd that “my art is simply about shapes and colors and what people make of them,” he presented the library with a signed print titled “Color Squares 2” (2011) — squares of green, blue, violet, red and orange on a horizontal white background. It hangs over the fireplace in the North Reading Room, and joins a trove of Kelly books and catalogs in the library’s collection.
DECEMBER 28, 2015, 11:12 PM LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2015, 11:16 PM
BY NICHOLAS PUGLIESE
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Good fences make good neighbors — unless there is bamboo involved. In that case, neighbors might curse, sue or move altogether, leaving behind hard feelings and a yard overtaken by the rapidly spreading plant.
Bamboo — sometimes used instead of a fence to mark property lines or lend privacy to a home — has quietly emerged as a divisive issue in suburban North Jersey, where homeowners have joined local and state officials in debating how to regulate the plant. In the process, they have had to grapple with questions about enforcement, property rights and even the role of government itself.
The growing consensus: There is no easy fix.
More than a dozen municipalities across the state — including Wayne, Emerson, Hillsdale, Palisades Park and Rockleigh — have some sort of bamboo regulation in place.
Others, like Washington Township, have considered adopting an ordinance to regulate bamboo, only to abandon the effort after concluding that it would be difficult to enforce, or that it was not the place of government to interfere with the rights of property owners or to mediate in disputes among neighbors.
“Bamboo is a problem between two neighbors,” said Mayor Max Arnowitz of Hillsdale, who is critical of the bamboo ordinance the Borough Council adopted earlier this year. “We usually say, ‘If you have a problem with your neighbor, you have to go to court.’ ”
Bamboo of the genus Phyllostachys — there are upward of 75 different kinds — is commonly called “running bamboo” because, if left unchecked, it can leap from yard to yard through a system of underground stems. Those stems are known to spread several feet in a matter of days, in defiance of property lines, and support canes — or culms, as they are properly known — that can grow as tall as 50 feet.
Ridgewood NJ, NJ TRANSIT is offering extra service for travelers attending New Year’s Eve festivities across the region. Please note that no alcoholic beverages will be permitted on board trains, light rail vehicles, buses or in any NJ TRANSIT facility. This policy will be strictly enforced by the NJ TRANSIT Police Department on New Year’s Eve and after midnight.
On New Year’s Eve, Thursday, December 31, rail service will operate on a weekday schedule with the following modifications:
Before 6 p.m., the Northeast Corridor and North Jersey Coast Lines will operate on a modified weekday schedule with certain morning peak period trains cancelled and additional mid-to-late morning service on each line. Extra mid-day Midtown Direct service will also operate between Summit and New York.
After 6 p.m., additional New York-bound trips will operate on the Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast and Morris & Essex lines. In addition, all trains that normally depart New York and Hoboken between 11:30 p.m. and 12:15 a.m. will be cancelled to support later service to customers returning from New York’s festivities. Customers should visit njtransit.com for details, including special printable schedules that cover the period from 6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve until 6 a.m. on New Year’s morning. For more information, click HERE.
Bus schedules vary by route. Customers are advised to check their timetables or visit njtransit.com for schedule information. Selected routes will operate on special holiday schedules, available on njtransit.com, to match service with ridership demand, including early getaway service from the Port Authority Bus Terminal and Jersey City Waterfront between noon and 4 p.m. to accommodate the heaviest travel, with less frequent service during the peak periods and later in the evening due to lower ridership. Early getaway service will also operate from the Jersey City waterfront on the No. 64 and No. 68 bus routes. In the evening, additional service to the Port Authority Bus Terminal will be offered on selected routes from approximately 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. to accommodate customers traveling to New York for the festivities. For more information, click HERE.
Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, Newark Light Rail and River Line will operate on a weekday schedule.
In addition, River Line will operate extended late-night service on New Year’s Eve and after midnight on New Year’s Day to accommodate customers attending the festivities on the Camden Waterfront. Special late-night trains will operate between Camden and Trenton, making all local stops. For more information, click HERE.
Hudson-Bergen Light Rail will also operate added late-night service on New Year’s Eve into New Year’s Day to accommodate travelers returning home from midnight celebrations. For more information for HBLR service, click HERE.
IMPORTANT NOTE: No alcoholic beverages will be permitted on board trains, light rail vehicles, aboard buses or in any NJ TRANSIT facility on New Year’s Eve and after midnight on New Year’s Day. This policy will be strictly enforced.
After midnight (early January 1), additional late-night trains will operate on most rail lines with one-seat ride service available on certain Raritan Valley Line and North Jersey Coast Line trains. Customers should visit njtransit.com for details, including special printable schedules that cover the period from 6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve until 6 a.m. on New Year’s morning. Expanded bus service will be provided from the Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) until approximately 2 a.m. on selected routes. Visit njtransit.com for details.
On New Year’s Day, Friday, January 1, after 5 a.m., trains will operate on a weekend/major holiday schedule. Newark Light Rail and River Line will operate on a Sunday schedule. Hudson-Bergen Light Rail will operate on a weekend schedule. Holiday bus schedules vary by route—customers are advised to visit njtransit.com for details.
On Saturday, January 2 and Sunday, January 3, trains will operate on a regular weekend schedule on all lines, with an additional train operating Sunday only on the Port Jervis Line. In addition, Meadowlands service will operate for the Giants vs. Philadelphia game on January 3. Customers should visit njtransit.com for details, especially those traveling to the Meadowlands for the 1 p.m. kickoff time. Buses will operate on a weekend schedule. Newark Light Rail will operate on a Saturday schedule. River Line will operate on a Sunday schedule. Hudson-Bergen Light Rail will operate on a weekend schedule. Please consult njtransit.com for additional details.
WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 8 PM THIS EVENING TO
6 AM EST TUESDAY…
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN UPTON HAS ISSUED A WINTER WEATHER
ADVISORY FOR SLEET AND FREEZING RAIN…WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 8
PM THIS EVENING TO 6 AM EST TUESDAY.
* LOCATIONS…SOUTHERN FAIRFIELD AND NEW HAVEN COUNTIES IN
CONNECTICUT…SOUTHERN WESTCHESTER COUNTY IN NEW YORK…BERGEN
AND EASTERN PASSAIC COUNTIES IN NEW JERSEY.
* HAZARD TYPES…SLEET AND FREEZING RAIN.
* ACCUMULATIONS…A TRACE OF SNOW AND ICE ACCUMULATION.
* TIMING…A WINTRY MIX DEVELOPS ACROSS THE TRI-STATE FROM WEST TO
EAST THIS EVENING. THIS WINTRY MIX CHANGES TO PLAIN RAIN
SOMETIME BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND 6 AM TUESDAY.
* IMPACTS…SLIPPERY ROADWAYS AND SIDEWALKS. WITH THE MAIN
THREAT BEING TO ELEVATED SURFACES AND HIGHER ELEVATIONS IN THE
ADVISORY AREA.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW…SLEET…OR
FREEZING RAIN WILL CAUSE TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR
SLIPPERY ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES…AND USE CAUTION WHILE
DRIVING.
DECEMBER 25, 2015, 10:09 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2015, 1:30 AM
BY JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
An Edgewater man shot and killed his wife and 8-year-old daughter before taking his own life, Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said during a press conference just before midnight Friday. Police discovered their bodies on Christmas in their luxury apartment building after they failed to turn up at a family holiday celebration, he said.
The prosecutor said the bodies of Michael Stasko, 53, his wife, Melissa, 49, and daughter, Nellie, 8, were found shortly after 7 p.m. on Friday in the Windsor at Mariners apartment building, when a relative in Missouri called the Edgewater police worried that they hadn’t yet arrived and weren’t answering their cellphones.
Stasko was found with a gunshot wound under his chin, and his wife and daughter had been shot in the backs of their heads, Molinelli said. The shootings could have occurred while the two were sleeping, as they were dressed in pajamas, and as long ago as Tuesday, on Nellie’s eighth birthday, Molinelli said. Along with the bodies, police found a .45-caliber handgun with hollow-point bullets.
A motive for the killings has not been determined.
DECEMBER 24, 2015 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY LYNN BRUGGEMANN
CORRESPONDENT |
MIDLAND PARK SUBURBAN NEWS
MIDLAND PARK — The gym at Midland Park Junior/Senior High School was filled with community members who came out to score more than points for their team by supporting a local family at the Bardzell Volleyball Marathon on Dec. 11.
The volleyball marathon was sponsored by the Spectrum Club, a student tolerance group at the high school to raise funds for brothers Alex and Adam Barzell following the death of their mother, Suzanne. The 48-year-old mother was allegedly stabbed to death by her former boyfriend, 44-year-old Arthur J. Lomando, on Oct. 22 as she chatted on a cellphone in her car after pulling into the driveway of her Godwin Avenue home.
Alex graduated from the school in 2015. Adam is a junior at the high school.
“The turnout for this event was no less than I expected from our wonderful town,” said Emily Padovano, Spectrum co-president. “A big thank you to the many local businesses who donated food and drinks to make the event a success.”
Club advisor and physical education teacher Maureen Fister-Donatein said 250 players helped field 34 teams who played for 7-1/2 hours with rosters that included parents, administrators, teachers, alumni, students and first responderd from the Midland Park Volunteer Ambulance Corps, Midland Park Police Dept., and Midland Park Volunteer Ambulance Corp.
