Alexander Menza

Joseph Menza, who has a six vote lead in his bid to become Mayor of Hillside, has a political pedigree: his distant cousin, Alexander Menza, was one of the state's most respected legislators during the six years he spent in Trenton.  Alex Menza began his career when he won a Hillside Township Committee seat in 1966, at age 34.  He was Mayor in 1969, and he won a seat in the State Assembly in 1971.  In 1973, he challenged Republican incumbent Frank McDermott (R-Westfield), 49, who had served as Senate President and run unsuccessfully for the 1969 GOP nomination for Governor.  Menza won 70% of the vote in Hillside (which was politically competitive in those days) and beat McDermott 57%-43% in a Republican-leaning district.

PolitickerNJ.com was deeply saddened by the death of Dr. David Rebovich, a prominent, popular and powerful political science professor at Rider University, and the Director of the Rider University Institute for New Jersey Politics, on October 12 . He was among the very best that New Jersey had to offer and it was our considerable honor to run his weekly column for the last six years. We miss him.

Among the favorites of the New Jersey political community who passed away in 2007: Fort Lee Mayor Jack Alter; former State Senator Byron Baer; former Assemblyman Neil Duffy; former Senate President Wesley Lance; former Burlington County Democratic Chairman George Lee; former State Sen. Alexander Menza, a candidate for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in 1978; former Bergen County Executive William McDowell; former Plainfield Mayor Albert McWilliams; former Rep. Joseph Minish; former Assemblywoman Angela Perun; Central New Jersey radio personality and former NJSEA spokesman for Bernard Spigner; political strategist Greg Stevens, who served as Chief of Staff to Gov. Thomas Kean former Public Advocate Stanley Van Ness; former Assemblyman Harold Pareti; former State Senator Richard Van Wagner; former Wayne Mayor/Superior Court Judge David Waks; and George Warrington, the former Executive Director of New Jersey Transit and the former President of Amtrak.