Ex-Sparta official to be named Hackensack city manager

On Monday night, Hackensack Mayor John Labrosse, right, called David R. Troast the "right candidate," and indicated the full City Council will name him city manager at tonight's meeting.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

The Hackensack City Council tonight is expected to name David R. Troast of Hawthorne as city manager.

At a Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday night, Mayor John Labrosse and Deputy Mayor Katherine Canestrino spoke positively about Troast's experience, education and qualifications for the key city job.

Labrosse, who called Troast the "right candidate," indicated the former Sparta official will get the nod at tonight's City Council meeting.

Background

Troast, 54, is a redevelopment planner who was township manager in Sparta (Sussex County) until a year ago, and before that headed the rural township's Department of Community Development and Services.

Troast is now working as "a confidential assistant on development projects for the city of Passaic," where thousands of Mexican-Americans live, at a part-time salary of $25,000.

Since 1989, he has owned David R. Troast LLC, which "specializes in professional planning services for municipalities and private clients in northern New Jersey."

His redevelopment background would seem to be a good fit in Hackensack, which has launched an ambitious plan to make over its downtown.

Sniping critics

Four of Troast's most vociferous critics come from Hackensack's Board of Education, which spends more to educate a student than does the highly regarded village of Ridgewood, according to state education officials.

Board of Education Attorney Richard Salkin was fired from a second job as municipal prosecutor after the winning City Council members took their seats in July 2013.

Two other critics, Jason Nunnermacker and Joseph Barreto, are Board of Education members who were on the losing slate, which was backed by the Zisa-allied City Council members who didn't run in May 2013.

Another critic, Daniel Carola, also is a member of the Board of Education. 

His attacks on the mayor and other council members serve to deflect attention from the sad state of the city's crowded public schools.

A bigger concern is that The Record's reporters have filled stories with the critics' attacks on the council, smears about Troast and other fiction without ever telling readers of their school board affiliations or that they are basically sore losers.

Today's paper

The Record today reports state officials have approved a bond to settle $8.65 million in property tax appeals in Hackensack (L-1).

At the same time, the city adopted a plan to bring tax assessments up to date.

For a Tuesday, the Local section is filled with an unusual amount of police, fire and court news, and related photos on L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6.

They serve as little more than filler for local assignment editors too lazy to chase municipal news from the 90 or so towns in the circulation area.

Christie's hit list

The environment will be taking another hit from Governor Christie, who plans to grab more than $100 million from a lawsuit settlement to balance the state budget (A-1).

Only $50 million of the $190 million settlement with Occidental Chemical Corp. in the cancer-causing pollution of the Passaic River would go for restoration work.

As usual, The Record doesn't say how much of the $190 million settlement will go to lawyers.

Cleaning up the environment, expanding mass transit and other important programs have been sacrificed to the GOP bully's deeply conservative no-tax pledge and his refusal to impose a tax surcharge on his wealthy supporters. 

As tax revenue continues to lag, a greedy Christie makes desperate grabs for money from other sources, as he will doing with the pollution settlement.

Nancy's laughing face?

Is that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi with Christie on A-2 today? 

That's what the photo caption says, but surely, that is wrong.

Instead, she looks like a member of the governor's Overeaters Anonymous class.

Eye on The Record

 will return soon

How to get Christie to shut up

Image via Wikipedia

The Passaic River makes or breaks Paterson.

Francis Scandale -- The Record's all-seeing, all-knowing editor -- carefully omitted Governor Christie's snub of Paterson in coverage of the Republican's crocodile-tears flood tour last week.


But on Sunday, Christie was at the side of President Obama, who cheered up Silk City residents and promised them federal aid in the wake of Hurricane Irene.


The voluble governor doesn't appear in today's Page 1 photo, and the story by Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson doesn't quote him. 


He didn't make a peep in any of the TV news clips I saw, either. A good thing. We've heard enough from the bully's big mouth.


Another huge error


Today's off-lead A-1 report on the grim jobless rate doesn't quote a single New Jersey resident -- what you'd expect when Scandale leaves such important stories to The Associated Press.


And at first glance, the headline on the continuation page seems ridiculous -- what you'd expect from Editor Liz Houlton's foot-in-mouth news copy desk:

Jobs: On average, 4.5 million people vie for each opening

But it's not only ridiculous, it's one of the biggest, bone-headed errors I've ever seen in the paper, because on A-6, the story clearly says "4.5 unemployed people, on average, are competing for each job opening," not "4.5 million."


Liz and Francis, aren't you embarrassed? How does this happen? You've failed to correct other major errors, but I hope you correct this one.


The third major element on the front page is another story in the 10th anniversary 9/11 series that began strongly with Staff Writer Leslie Brody's piece on the memorial to New Jersey victims, then sort of plotzed.

In his 9/11 piece on Sunday, Staff Writer Jeff Pillets explored the nation's "crisis of confidence."

But he fails to make the connection between our huge deficits, Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, nor does he ever say whether the wars made us safer.


I'm looking at Sunday's front page now, and just noticed the amateurish drop headline on Pillets' story: "The challenge of 9/2011."


Labored Day


Who would have thought an effete snob like Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin is the son of a proud union man, a typographer at the Daily News no less (A-13)?


Here it is Labor Day, but Doblin not only collects a paycheck from the rabidly anti-union Borgs, he's also defended Christie's assaults on unionized state employees, teachers and cops.


At least today's editorial puts the blame on businesses for rolling up huge profits and cash reserves, but refusing to hire new workers (A-13).


Edit me, please


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes leads her Local section with another column by Mike Kelly that cries out for editing, starting with the first paragraph:

"In the months after 9/11, cops, firefighters and others headed to Ground Zero to sort through the debris. Here in North Jersey, Peter Killeen sorted through another kind of rubble."

Another kind of rubble? What the f--- is he talking about? In the next paragraph, he tells us the "rubble" is composed of "cops needing to vent" and later, he says the rubble is the "broken souls of first responders."


What kind of strained, amateurish writing is this? Where is his assignment editor, in the bathroom?


The bottom of L-1 is devoted to a new math curriculum in Englewood -- a story that doesn't tell readers outside of that city students in the elementary and middle school are 99% minority.


The inside pages are padded with stories by reporters whose names aren't familiar to readers of the Woodland Park daily, meaning they likely came from   
a North Jersey Media Group weekly.