The last of the Zisa's in city hall. He did a lot in terms of code enforcement, and despite any other flaws or issues, that should be recognized.
Just ride around Hackensack and look. You don't see a lot of dilapidated properties anymore. I would say that half of the credit for that goes to Michael Melfi, and the other half to Joe Mellone. The Zisa administration was one step better than the Cerbo administration, and the Melfi-Townes administration was two steps better than the Zisa's on this issue. Developers actually complained to me that "Hackensack is tough with inspections", and "Hackensack actually inspects inside every single unit in a new construction multi-unit building, no other city does that". And let's not forget the inspections of all the parking garages after the collapse on Prospect Ave, including actions taken at Summit & Essex. I am hopeful that the LaBrosse administration will be equally vigilant with code enforcement and inspections.
I remember back in the days of Larry Manning, it was like pulling teeth to get code enforcement to do anything.
