Steering goes out on Bayonne police car, causing a crash; Did Bayonne City Council keep their word on new police cruisers?

First the crash--Officer Richard Cotter was driving south Broadway between 13th and 14th when his steering went out causing his car to swerve to the right and finally wound up stopped on a sidewalk in front of a liquor store. We at the JCD are happy that officer Cotter and no pedestrians were injured.

Now, the police union immediately went after the Bayonne City Council for not keeping their word on what Officer William Kobryn said was a "done deal" to buy 10 new cruisers. The city only got 5. Police chief Robert Kubert chimed in saying he was "disappointed" in the council for failing to order 10 cars. "We had the rug swept out from under us".

OK, good police cars are a vital part of any top flight police force but this car had only 93,000 miles on it. It should hold up longer than that. These cars should be getting 150,000 miles out of them. Yeah yeah we know police cruisers are always on the go and always in service and get driven hard. Welcome to our world. We count on our cars too. Full on all the time our cars have to work to get us to and from work as well. Regular folks also don't get their own dedicated service departments.

We'd say to the Bayonne PD, settle down. It sounds like you WILL get your new cruisers and they may be hybrids. To use this accident as a platform to run your own city down seems pointless. There was no need to air this in the press so goofballs like Johhny can comment. It may make the complainer seem petty. Like now....

Late night open thread

Hey puck fans, the Devils are home tomorrow vs Florida at the The Rock. 1pm faceoff. Why should you care? If the playoffs started today, the Devils and Panthers would meet in the first round.

Tickets still available, take the kids to a matinee you'll enjoy. Seriously, would you rather take the kids to the Devils game with rock 'em sock 'em action or the Jonas Brothers movie?

Thought so.

Time for Jersey City, After Dark

Friday night MULTIMEDIA EXTRAVAGANZA with AL GREEN!

The reverend Al Green with a soulful version of 'Take Me to the River'. Get those dancing shoes on folks, Al is gonna testify proper!

Friday night MULTIMEDIA EXTRAVAGANZA with THE RAMONES!

Johnny feels so very close to this band now that he lives just across the river from their stomping grounds. He doesn't tell many people this but he thinks The Ramones are the greatest US band ever.

The Ramones with 'Sheena is a Punk Rocker'

Friday night MULTIMEDIA EXTRAVAGANZA with JAMES BROWN!

The Godfather of soul, and other less savory things, gettin' it here with 'Get up Offa That Thing'

See if you can't follow the logic here...

Unless you've been living under the Brooklyn Bridge, you know Yankees star Alex Rodriguez took steroids for many years which according to him were procured for him by his cousin Yuri Sucart. Sucart never took the illegal steroids, he merely got them for A-Roid. A-Roid was the one who took them. So, if you're the Yankees what do you do? Ban Sucart from all team facilities. According to New York Yankees human checkbook Brian Cashman, "That's been taken care of, It's been handled."

God forbid you'd punish the guy who ingested illegal steroids. Oh, wait, silly us, he's the one who will hit 40 home runs this year. What were we thinking, he should be GLORIFIED.

Late night open thread

Don't say dinner, say Armour® Pork Brains. If you don't feel like making your own from scratch, Armour® has you covered. By the way, this product has 1170% of your daily cholesterol. Must be the unhealthy milk gravy.

Time for Jersey City, After Dark

Mayor Healy, your teevee ads talk tough on crime, yet, there have been a spate of mob attacks recently, have you heard?

We see your election ads touting your record on crime as all that and a bag of chips. The problem the Jersey City Desk is having is then continually reading about young thuggish mobs attacking, robbing and beating Jersey City residents. Normally when an elected official is running for re-election on a "the crime rate is down" platform, they sit on these zoo animals and step up police patrols and keep the citizenry safer. We're just not seeing that now. Several incidents, from this one, to this one, to this one, to this one to the gang of six to ten hooded or masked crooks who robbed a resident of his cell phone and watch near Kennedy and Van Winkle a few weeks back make your ads look like so much bluster.

If you can't have your police force step up to the plate and do more to PREVENT/catch/prosecute these crimes NOW, before an election, it makes us wonder how bad things may get after the election. You know, once the risk of the voters judgement is no longer such a driving force in your political life. Dammit Mayor, it's close, REAL close to becoming unsafe to walk the streets of Jersey City after dark. All its gonna take is one of these scumbag thug mobs to kill somebody and Johnny's gonna drop some money and put up a billboard along the 1 and 9 and ask why you can't keep us safe while you're claiming to do it.

Statistics are fine things, go tell the crime victims in these stories crime is down on your watch Mayor Healy and see how comforted they become.

Feel safer New York?

There were two fatal crane accidents in the Big Appletini last year. So, New York City did the responsible thing and passed tough new laws about crane operation and the amount of time one spends learning to run them. A 30 hour class in raising and lowering cranes was among the changes. Of course to union official and crane safety teacher James P. Conway, this new safety initiative didn't matter much. He was STILL all about letting organized crime and other non-qualified doofuses run the cranes.

According to the New York Times, some of the qualified people in apprentice programs were, well, strippers. Who cares, really, only NINE people died in crane accidents last year. Who cares that mob types and strippers are part of the program? According to Conway, one of the real reasons they ran the program the way they did? To keep out minorities;

Mr. Conway said that he believed the union’s testing process, which he acknowledged repeatedly bypassing and manipulating to help mob figures and their family members and the friends and relatives of union members and officials, was used to keep out minority applicants. He described shepherding the cases of two minority applicants through the process, an action that incurred the wrath of one union member whose sons Mr. Conway had tested and failed.

Delightful.

Late night open thread

On this day in 1913 Thurston Howell III (TeeVee's Jim Backus) was born. It's a shame he had to live his remaining days on that island and never got rescued. Wait, wasn't Gilligan's Island a reality show?

Time for Jersey City, After Dark