Is a 27-minute City Council meeting a new record?

The first-floor Hackensack City Hall office used by Albert H. Dib, a city employee who wears a number of hats. He also spends half a day at the Main Street offices of the Upper Main Alliance, where he is executive director.

 

You couldn't call the city of Hackensack efficient.

The city apparently owns no hybrid or all-electric cars and operates a fleet of Ford Crown Victorias and other gas guzzlers.

No solar panels have been installed on any of its buildings; and no red-light cameras are operating to bring in the extra revenue the tax-poor city sorely needs.

The city gets points for opening a Recycling Center on Green Street that accepts computers, TVs and other electronics; light bulbs, batteries and lots of other stuff, but not for staffing it 6 days a week.

I brought recyclables to the center on Tuesday, the second time I visited in about 2 years, and saw the city employee reading the paper each time. I was the only resident there.

Where's the fire?

The Hackensack City Council is another matter.
 
On Tuesday night, council members raced through their agenda in 27 minutes, and about 10 minutes of that was taken up by comments and questions from two residents.

Is that a new record?

To be fair, they met as a Committee of the Whole, starting at 6:30 p.m. 

Council members are paid $10,400 a year, and the member who is designated as mayor gets several hundred dollars more.

Albert H. Dib

Albert H. Dib is paid $64,268 a year as an employee of Hackensack, City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono said on Tuesday, answering a query from Eye on The Record.

Dib has an office in City Hall, but spends half a day at the Main Street offices of the Upper Main Alliance, where he is executive director.

The alliance reimburses the city about $32,000, Lo Iacono said.

That $32,000 apparently comes from assessments on merchants who are members of the alliance, and they presumably pass that along to customers as a cost of doing business in the city.

Dib is the Web master for Hackensack's official Web site; he is the city's chief Information Technology specialist, and he handles some public relations chores, Lo Iacono said.

Dib also is the unidentified "Editor" of HackensackNow.org (Community Message Boards).

More Christie B.S.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes did a masterful job of editing The Record's story on Governor Christie's visit to Bergenfield on Tuesday, putting the GOP bully in the best light on the front of Local (L-1).

However, readers who turned to the continuation page discovered all the bad news (L-6) -- the income-tax credit Christie is pushing not only isn't funded in his proposed budget, but would save "the average property owner $100."

I guess middle- and working class residents who have a job can use that to help defer the outrageous toll hikes Christie rubber stamped.

They can also wonder what the state could do with the $1 billion in revenue from a modest tax surcharge on millionaires Christie has vetoed at least twice.

Also in Local, readers will find two long stories on the proposed budgets in Teaneck and Englewood (L-3), but nothing similar about Hackensack's budget plan.

In fact, The Record has only run a brief about Hackensack's 2013 budget, far less coverage than for other towns.  

Front-page follies

Just about all of Page 1 today is covered by more coverage of Boston and Rutgers.

Having seen and listened to hours of coverage on TV and radio, I just scan the headlines and captions of the Boston story.

I wonder if The Record and other media have explored why the marathon attack is the first time terrorists have succeeded in using bombs to kill civilians since 9/11 -- despite billions spent on homeland security.