Ex-Hackensack mayor blasts independent candidate

The entrance to the polls at the Fairmount Elementary School on Grand Avenue in Hackensack, where independent City Council candidate Victor E. Sasson voted for himself this morning, below.

"X" marks a vote for Sasson (Line 11), editor of Eye on The Record.

On a beautiful day for voting, independent City Council candidate Victor E. Sasson drove down to his polling place this morning, and was blasted by ex-Mayor Jack Zisa and Open Government candidate Joseph Barreto, one of "the Zisa slate" puppets.

Zisa -- standing on the street corner with Barreto -- was incensed that Sasson's campaign flier urged voters "to end the corrupt rule of the Zisa family."

Zisa saw one of the fliers on Monday night, when Sasson's wife and teenage son distributed them on Poplar Avenue, where the former mayor lives.

Barreto followed Sasson to his car, and criticized him for telling voters the Zisa-backed candidate doesn't send his children to the public schools, calling that an attack on Baretto's religion.

Lara L. Rodriguez, left, who was elected to the Board of Education in April, leaving the voting booth this morning at the Fairmount School. Her candidacy was backed by Hackensack's political machine, which has controlled the city for decades.

 

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg refused to "get involved" in Hackenack's non-partisan municipal election, opening the way for Newark Mayor Cory Booker to make a robo call backing candidates from the Coalition for Open Government, also known as "the Zisa slate."

Open Government candidates also are backed by Lynne Hurwitz, the city's Democratic boss and the power behind Ken Zisa, the disgraced former state Assemblyman and convicted ex-police chief, and brother of Jack Zisa, who served as mayor for 16 years, until 2005.

Another Democratic party figure, the widow of state Sen. Byron Baer of Englewood, also sent out a letter mounting a scurrilous attack on the Citizens for Change slate of reformers.

The letter from Linda Baer, a former state Administrative Law Judge and Bergen County freeholder, carried a Clinton Street address.

Residents may have wondered why Linda Baer would get involved in a Hackensack election.

It turns out Lara L. Rodriguez, one of the successful machine candidates for Board of Education last month, is Byron Baer's daughter.  

How cozy everyone is in Hackensack.

Dissing Hackensack

The Record hasn't mentioned the election since a front-page story last Thursday.

Today, the Woodland Park daily finally publishes a story about the approval of Hackensack's $91.9 million budget a week ago.

Of course, property taxes are going up, piling on a 65% increase in recent years under the current City Council, which has raped the taxpayer.

The story on L-3 is a reprint from the weekly Hackensack Chronicle, and fails to mention today's crucial election.

The polls are open until 8 p.m. today.

Hackensack voters, throw off your chains.

Multimillionaire banker and developer Fred Daibes has expressed an interest in the 20 acres along River Street in Hackensack owned by the Borg family, publishers of The Record and Herald News, according to rumors circulating today.

Borgs, Daibes et al.

The Record and the Borg family were the subject of Election Day rumors in Hackensack.

Fred Daibes, founder of Mariner's Bank in Edgewater, apparently has expressed an interest in developing 20 acres on River Street, former headquarters of The Record, which moved out in 2009.

That might explain why Daibes -- one of the county's most politically active developers -- came out smelling like a rose in Sunday's Page 1 expose of unsecured Mariner's Bank loans to Democratic Party bigwig Joseph Ferriero and others.

The story was written by Jean Rimbach, whose rare byline exposes her as the least productive member of the newsroom.

Rimbach keeps her job, because of her friendship with head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, a lifer who seems immune to being fired, despite the drastic decline in local news in the past decade.