Donna Williams

Council President Ed Marable, Jr.

The Orange City Council last night elected South Ward Councilman Ed Marable, Jr., council president.

The vote was 5-0-2, with only Marable and West Ward Councilman Hassan Abul-Rasheed abstaining.

"I'm motivated to make a difference," said Marable.

An attorney and Orange native, the new council president succeeds Councilwoman Lisa Perkins in the local governing body's command chair.

An unsuccessful off-the-line candidate two years ago for the 27th District Assembly seat occupied by jailed former Assemblyman/Mayor Mims Hackett, Marable later considered running for mayor of Orange.

Ultimately, the independent Democrat decided to back the man who would become that contest's eventual winner.

Eldridge Hawkins at the opening of Obama HQ in Newark, with Irvington Mayor Wayne Smith (background, left).

ORANGE – In the city a little over a year, young Eldridge Hawkins, Jr., ran as the Obama of Orange – a new messenger intent on change in the wake of another public man’s wreckage.

As he observed his older opponent on Election Day, Hawkins brazenly likened the campaign of At-Large Councilman Donald Page to a shopworn Hillary Clinton, and compared his own to that of the hard-charging, inspirational Barack Obama.

But more than five months into his term of office as mayor, Hawkins’s critics object to what they call the 29-year old executive’s early failure to deliver the city convincingly from the era of Mims Hackett, who’s soon to be serving time in a federal pen for corruption.

A proposed $57.2 million budget is up $3.6 million from last year’s, and residents face a significant tax increase. Meanwhile, even new furnishings at City Hall can’t camouflage an entrenched cast of old regime characters. 

MINNEAPOLIS - It was a case of lights, camera, no-show last night at the City of Orange Council meeting.

Upset that Mayor Eldridge Hawkins wants to tape meetings without their approval, four council people refused to attend the regularly scheduled Tuesday night meeting.

"As the mayor, he has to come through the council," said veteran Councilwoman Tency Eason, one of the governing body boycotters, along with Council President Lisa Perkins, Councilman Rayfield Morton and Councilman Elroy Corbitt.

"Enough is enough," said Eason, who lost to Hawkins in Orange’s mayoral election in May.

"He got a letter from the council president telling them to cease and desist," Eason said of Hawkins. "We apologize but we can’t allow the mayor to just go off and tape a council meeting without our approval."