The man at the front of the room

Former Assemblyman Eldridge Hawkins, Sr.

ORANGE - Midway into a mayoral candidates’ forum in a senior housing facility in the North Ward, an elegant, bearded man walks briskly to the front of the room and occupies a chair almost directly in front of At Large Councilman Donald Page.

Conspicuously seated apart from the rest of the audience, the man studies closely the politician widely viewed as the frontrunner in the race.

Page is the only one of six candidates who rises to answer every question, and as he speaks now, the other man has a bemused expression on his face. He looks to be monitoring every word, it seems, for any imprecision.

A celebrated civil rights attorney, former assemblyman, and husband of former beauty queen Linda Cofer, the man is Eldridge Hawkins, father of the young candidate for mayor who sits on the dais with Page.

"Was that the psychological warfare of a trial attorney?" the elder Hawkins is asked after the debate when the chairs have emptied.

He smiles and moves into the crowd, shaking hands.

"He doesn’t intimidate me," says Page. "He could sit his chair right in front of me. It wouldn’t bother me."

Meanwhile, Hawkins’s son, a 28-year old buttoned down West Orange police officer and a new resident in the City of Orange, works another corner of the room.

"The kid’s not from Orange," complains a grimacing Tency Eason supporter. "Before last year he lived at home with mommy and daddy."

"I don’t think Orange is ready for a young guy like him, an outsider," says Eason supporter William Hathaway.

Although they are neighboring towns, definite economic and racial distinctions exist between West Orange - where the median household income stands at $69,254 and the population is 68% white - and Orange, median household income, $33,759 and 75% black.

Having grown up in Orange, the elder Hawkins now lives with his family in the splendid, upscale Llewellyn Park neighborhood of West Orange.

His son’s opponents are fast to criticize the Hawkins’s as financially well-heeled interlopers. It’s distressing, they say, that the candidate only last year voted in his first election in Orange, according to local records.

Looking at an anti-crime mailer of Hawkins’s that shows a pointed gun accompanied by the words, "Stop the violence!" Page shakes his head.

"I took offense to that mailer," he says. " For someone to come from outside Orange to deal something out like that, it’s disrespectful to Orange."

But throughout this contest, concerns about Hawkins run deeper than merely his West Orange residential roots.

There is in nearly every other camp the charge that should he be elected, the young Hawkins’s aggressive and politically connected father would control him.

In a potentially fertile development climate in Orange, people also wonder what deals among the power brokers catapulted Hawkins into the fund-raising pole position, with $39,872 raised so far, according to the last Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) report, compared to second place finisher Page, who to date has raised $16,645.

Then there’s the lawsuit.

The mayor of West Orange is John McKeon, also an assemblyman, and a close political ally of state Senate President Richard Codey. Codey once served with the elder Hawkins in the state assembly and now backs the son for mayor.

Seeking $15 million in punitive damages, the young Hawkins’s suit charges that the township discriminated against him when it hired him as a patrolman three and a half years ago. The reason? Because he is not of Irish-American descent.

The suit says that West Orange gave Patrolman Brad Squires preferential treatment to Hawkins.

"We’re waiting for a decision on a motion that was filed (in federal court)," says the senior Hawkins. "It’s not appropriate at this time to comment, for a variety of reasons."

Defense attorney Steve Mannion argues that although Squires indeed tested lower than Hawkins on his civil service exam, he was already trained as a police officer and had served as an officer for several years in Orange. Squires negotiated a salary increase based on his experience, which put him at $42,000 plus to start as he made the transition from the Orange to West Orange PD.

The inexperienced Hawkins started at $34,285.

His father strongly denies that he, Codey or McKeon ever talked about trading Codey’s political muscle for Hawkins’s promise to pull the plug on the lawsuit if his son gets elected mayor of Orange.

"Untrue, untrue, untrue," says the lawyer. "It never happened. Absolutely untrue."

The campaign followed up with a statement: "No deals have been made regarding Eldridge's lawsuit whatsoever."

As for the profusion of donations received by the campaign, the former assemblyman says, "There’s no secret. We live in West Orange, in a nice neighborhood. My neighbors are contributing to Eldridge’s campaign because they like him."

The candidate’s mother, who serves as campaign chair, adds, "Organizations generally solicit the help of those who are well connected in trying to raise money for causes. Raising money for causes is something I've done as a volunteer and professionally for decades. Fortunately, people have cared enough about me, Eldridge and the plight of Orange to want to help by going into their wallets. This is a good thing."

But another campaign contributor to Hawkins has less than stellar public standing. Keith Miles of Orange pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud in 2005 for his role in a $2 million real estate scam. According to the Star-Ledger, Miles admitted to filing falsified loan applications to help unqualified borrowers obtain government-backed loans to develop properties in low income neighborhoods.

Miles has contributed $1,500 to Hawkins’s campaign, and an additional $2,000 to the campaign of Janice Morrell, according to ELEC reports.

Even though they have the edge in money and political muscle, the elder Hawkins says it’s a mistake for people to deny his family’s connections to Orange and to the particular concerns of low and moderate income people. He notes that he cut his professional teeth on Springfield Avenue in Newark, working civil rights cases in the aftermath of the riots.

And he comes from Orange.

"I grew up on Beach Street. My aunt - the sister of my dad - lived in Orange. Our family roots are in Orange," he says. "My son can’t help it if his family moved to Llewellyn Park. My son is not an elitist. He’s a man of the people, and that’s why he moved to the Valley in Orange, two blocks from where his parents grew up."

He doesn’t bristle when he’s told about the street talk out there that he’s too much involved in Eldridge, Jr.’s campaign.

"Anybody’s mother and father would support him if they love him," he says.