Like kids who scribble their names in crayon on the walls or carve their initials into school desks, too many self-important elected officials feel the need to hang their name on every municipal building, library, basketball court or public restroom.

It’s ego-driven, taxpayer-funded campaign literature. And it has to stop.

Here's why: Washington Township officials wanted to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, so they contracted for a stone marker outside the municipal building. There were more than 3,000 innocent victims of the attacks, but only six names appear on the marker – the mayor, council members and township administrator.

And those names take up roughly two-thirds of the monument.

Asked one resident: “How freakin’ narcissistic can you get?”

Exactly.

Mayor Samir Elbassiouny, embarrassed by the outrage the memorial has caused, removed the marker and pledges a more appropriate plaque will be made to join the piece of twisted World Trade Center steel, which is also part of the memorial.

But the mayor doesn’t understand what the fuss is about. The names were just “a signature on behalf of the committee for the residents to honor the victims of 9/11,” he said.

To which we ask: Why does the marker need anyone’s signature – least of all a bunch of grandstanding (or ridiculously obtuse) – elected officials who aren’t intimately connected to the tragedy?