Hackensack mayor and his team declare victory, defeating slate backed by Zisas

At the Stony Hill Inn in Hackensack, Mayor John Labrosse declared a clean sweep in today's City Council election.

Labrosse and Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino flanking newcomer Stephanie Von Rudenborg, who will be sworn to a four-year term on the City Council on July 1. Incumbent Councilmen Leo Battaglia and David Sims also were reelected.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Hackensack Mayor John Labrosse and his team declared victory in today's non-partisan City Council election.

According to unofficial results, they defeated a slate backed by the Zisa family, whose political machine was trying to regain control of a city they dominated for decades.

Reelected to four-year terms along with Labrosse were Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino, and Councilmen Leo Battaglia and David Sims.

The fifth member of the Labrosse 

Team, newcomer Stephanie Von Rudenborg, a member of the Planning Board, also was elected.

Labrosse and his slate of City Council reformers were first elected in May 2013, when they defeated another Zisa-backed slate, breaking the family's decades-long chokehold on a city that was mocked as "Zisaville."

The mayor and other City Council members have accelerated Hackensack's ambitious downtown rehabilitation plan, expanded recreation and delivered the first cut in the property tax rate in more than a decade. 

Labrosse supporters said about 3,700 votes were cast in a city with more than 22,000 registered voters.

That doesn't include mail-in ballots.