Brian P. Stack - Career - As Mayor and State Legislator

As Mayor and State Legislator

Stack later rose to prominence as the leader of a civic organization called Union City First, and for his public criticism of the administration of Mayor Rudy Garcia. Stack served as a Commissioner from 1997 to 1998, and was appointed to replace Garcia as mayor in October 2000, after Garcia resigned in the face of Stack's call for a recall election. Stack was elected unopposed to the Board of Commissioners in a special election in November 2001 and in May 2002 he and his ticket for the city's Board of Commissioners all ran unopposed. Stack simultaneously won the 7th District seat on the Hudson County Board of Chosen Freeholders, where he served from 2000 until his election to the Assembly in 2004. Stack relinquished his Freeholder position when he was elected to the New Jersey State Assembly on January 13, 2004. Stack was reelected in 2005 and served in the Assembly until 2007.

Stack was reelected Mayor on May 9, 2006, winning 9,058 votes, 85% of the vote, compared to the 1,647 votes won by his opponent, Little Ferry Superintendent of Schools Frank Scarafile.

In 2007, Stack ran for the New Jersey Senate in the primary election for the Senate seat held by retiring State Senator Bernard Kenny, with a team of eight other 33rd District Assembly candidates vying for nine legislative seats, under the banner Democrats for Hudson County. Their main opposition was the Hudson County Democratic Organization (HCDO), which was headed by West New York Mayor and then-33rd Legislative District Assembly member Silverio Vega. On June 5, 2007, Stack won the primary, beating his opponents by a wide margin of 18,213 votes to Vega's 5,582, though only three of the candidates in Stack's column, including himself, were victorious. Stack and running mates Ruben Ramos and Caridad Rodriguez subsequently swept the state Senate and state Assembly in the November 6, 2007 general election. He has served in the Senate since January 8, 2008. Stack was reelected on November 8, 2011, garnering 18,244 votes over opponent Beth Hamburger's 2,815 votes.

Stack represents the 33rd District, one of the 40 districts in the New Jersey Legislature, each of which has one representative in the New Jersey Senate and two members in the New Jersey General Assembly. The other representatives serving in the legislature alongside Stack from the 33rd District for the 2012-2013 Legislative Session are Assemblyman Ruben J. Ramos and Assemblyman Sean Connors.

Stack simultaneously holds a seat in the New Jersey Senate and as Mayor. This dual position, often called double dipping, is allowed under a grandfather clause in the state law enacted by the New Jersey Legislature and signed into law by Governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine in September 2007 that prevents dual-office-holding but allows those who had held both positions as of February 1, 2008, to retain both posts.

Since his first years as mayor, Stack has focused on quality of life issues in Union City, in particular that which was affected by local bars violating liquor licenses for noise and selling alcohol to minors. His initiative to change the mandatory closing time for bars from 3 am to 2 am gained support from local police and city residents, despite opposition from local tavern owners.

In the Assembly, Stack served on the Regulated Professions and Independent Authorities Committee (as Vice Chair), the Transportation and Public Works Committee and the Joint Legislative Committee on Public School Funding Reform. Each of the forty districts in the New Jersey Legislature has one representative in the New Jersey Senate and two members in the New Jersey General Assembly. Stack represented the 33rd Legislative District together with Senator Bernard Kenny. The district's other Assembly seat was at that time held by Silverio Vega.

Stack and his commissioners were re-elected in a landslide victory on May 11, 2010, over Vision 4 Union City's slate of candidates, headed by recurring opponent Frank Scarafile. Stack won nearly 11,000 votes to Scarafile's nearly 1,200, with Stack's slate, which includes Tilo Rivas, Lucio Fernandez, Maryury Martinetti and Christopher Irizarry, registering a combined total of between 85% and 90% of the vote. Stack and Scarafile, who criticized his opponent for his level of involvement and control in matters he contends are outside the legislative role of mayor, such as board appointments and school hiring, are embroiled in mutual lawsuits over negative campaign literature distributed by Scarafile in December 2009.

Stack has been noted to employ various methods to make himself available to Union City citizens, such as widely publicizing his cell phone number. Since 2000, Stack has spent a few dates each quarter away from City Hall in a "mobile office" tent that is set up at various locations in Union City in order for people who do not have easy access to City Hall to see him. According to Stack, whereas he sees approximately 350 to 400 people a week at City Hall, his mobile office attracts upwards of 300 people a day. Stack, who employs a translator to communicate with Spanish-only speakers, is frequently asked by citizens for assistance in matters such as housing and employment. In July 2010, Stack increased his mobile office appearances to a monthly basis. Among the activities sponsored by his organization, the Brian Stack Civic Association, are annual delivery of free turkeys to the needy and free public Thanksgiving dinners.

In September 2010, as controversy arose over the Park51 project in Lower Manhattan, Feisal Rauf, the imam in charge of that project, came under scrutiny by Mayor Stack's administration over problems faced by a number of rental properties Rauf owns in Hudson County, including four in Union City, which residents complained had fallen into disrepair, with cited problems including lack of heat, rats, bed bug infestations, and inoperable fire alarms and sprinklers. Stack, who criticized Rauf as a "slumlord", announced the creation of a Quality of Life Task Force that would identify buildings in need of renovations, and filed suit against Rauf to have his properties placed into receivership. Some Union City residents, however, questioned why the timing of these actions against Rauf's properties did not become an issue in New York City and national media, and why the long-standing problems faced by these properties were not addressed until the larger controversy over Park51 came to light, particularly given that Stack became mayor in 2000.