Eldridge Hawkins

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.

Read More >

A former political rival of Senate President Richard Codey is making a comeback: Joel Shain, the 67-year-old former Mayor of Orange who set records for campaign spending when he challenged Codey in the 1983 Democratic primary, is running for Democratic State Committeeman from Somerset County. Shain spent more than $250,000 in his bid to oust Codey, who was seeking re-election to a second term in the Senate.  Codey won easily.

Shain is the beneficiary of good political connections in Somerset, where he has lived since leaving Essex County politics.  He is the law partner of Peggy Schaffer, who was elected Democratic County Chairman last year.  (Another partner is Peter Tober, a former Assistant Counsel to two GOP Governors, and now one of the Republican members of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission.)

Codey and Shain were child prodigies in Orange politics.  Shain served as Deputy state Attorney General before his election as Mayor in 1970, at age 29.  Codey was a 27-year-old Democratic District Leader when he won a State Assembly seat in 1973 – defeating George Minish, the son of popular Democratic Congressman Joseph Minish (D-West Orange).  One week later, Shain ran for Essex County Democratic Chairman, but lost by a wide margin to the powerful party boss, Harry Lerner.

Shain was a one-term Mayor (he lost to a Republican named Carmine Capone), but came back to win again in 1980.  Codey moved up to the Senate eight years later when Pat Dodd ran for Governor.  Shain was done in Essex politics in 1984 and went on to serve as the Municipal Attorney in Monroe Township.  Codey became Senate Minority Leader, Senate President, and for fifteen months from 2004 to 2006, as Governor of New Jersey.

While representing a solidly Democratic district, Codey has won some impressive victories.  Besides beating Minish and Shain, he’s successfully fought back some significant Senate primary challenges, including former Assemblywoman Mildred Barry Garvin (D-East Orange) in 1991, and Assemblyman Robert Brown, the Mayor of Orange, in 1993. 

Read More >

Assemblyman Michael Doherty says he'll seek the Republican nomination for State Senator against soon-to-be incumbent Marcia Karrow in June.  "Wild horses couldn't prevent me from running in that primary," he said.  Over the last 32 years, six Assembly members have taken on incumbent Senators in primaries, but only two have won.

The last sitting member of the State Assembly to beat an incumbent Senator in a primary was Leanna Brown, who beat James Vreeland in the 1983 Republican primary.  That same year, Senator Joseph Bubba defeated Assemblyman Terry LaCorte in the GOP primary. 

In 1993, State Senator Richard Codey beat Assemblyman Robert Brown in the Democratic primary.  Most recently, in 2003, Assemblyman LeRoy Jones unsuccessfully challenged Senator Nia Gill in the Democratic primary.

The 1977 primary election -- the same one where nine Democrats challenged incumbent Brendan Byrne in the Democratic gubernatorial primary - two Senators faced primary challenges from former running mates:  Charles Yates, a Democratic Assemblyman from Burlington County, ousted Senator Edward Hughes in the Democratic primary; and Assemblyman Eldridge Hawkins took on Senate President Frank "Pat" Dodd in the Democratic primary and lost. (Hawkins finished third, with tennis great Althea Gibson running second.) 

Read More >

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. 

Read More >

 

County Chairman Phil Thigpen: Politicker photo 

NEWARK - It was appropriate that their office should stand across the street from the War Memorial. Sized up as a group, they were the veterans of a lot of Essex County wars.

The office setting, too, underscored tough times, like a set-piece out of "Glengarry Glen Ross.".

A former Countrywide home loan office that went belly up in a bad economy, this storefront a few doors down from the Robert Treat Hotel now houses the county’s Obama campaign headquarters, which officially opened Monday.

"You could say we’re one good thing to come out of them going out of business," said West Ward Councilman Ronald C. Rice, county campaign coordinator, standing in the split level, nearly wallpapered over now with Obama campaign signs.

Read More >

Mayor Eldridge Hawkins: Politicker file photo 

MINNEAPOLIS - Orange Mayor Eldridge Hawkins today said he has no intention of backing down from his promise to deliver televised meetings to the people of his city, despite a majority on the city council refusing to participate in live televised meetings.

"They paralyzed the progress of the city, and left the meeting with no quorum last night," said Hawkins, who took office in July to succeed Mims Hackett, who was busted by the FBI last year and convicted of public corruption.

"First, I need no special authority from the council to record the meetings," said Hawkins. "It’s a public right to record those meetings. But second, though I needed no extra authority, I intentionally sought out the council president."

Read More >

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."

Read More >

Citing the statute of limitations, U.S. District Judge William J. Martini today moved to dismiss a complaint filed by Eldridge Hawkins, Jr., against the West Orange Police Department and the Township of West Orange.

"The Court finds that the applicable one- and two-year statutes of limitation indeed do bar plaintiff’s federal claims since they arise from Defendants’ conduct in mid-2004 while plaintiff waited until late 2007 to file this complaint," Martini wrote in his decision.

Hawkins, who was elected mayor of Orange on May 13, is on a leave of absence from his job as a patrolman with the West Orange Police Department.

The suit he filed against the West Orange Police Department and the township asserted that West Orange gave hiring and salary preferences to other officers based on their Irish heritage.

Read More >

ORANGE - Battling criticism, Mayor Eldridge Hawkins, Jr., today backed down from receiving a $25,000 mayor’s salary on top of his existing salary as fire director, according to spokeswoman Linda Cofer Hawkins.

That thins Hawkins’s public salary to $79,700 for his jobs as fire director ($76,000) and emergency management coordinator ($3,700).

In a statement, the newly sworn-in mayor acknowledged the negative response caused by his initial designs on a $104,700 annual salary.

Read More >

 Superior Court Judge Donald Goldman today dismissed a challenge by Mayor Eldridge Hawkins, Jr.: Politicker photoNorth Ward Councilwoman Tency Eason, who had tried to declare void results of the June 9th Orange Democratic County Committee election in Orange. 

Eason lost the election to then Mayor-elect Eldridge Hawkins, Jr., by a vote of 15 to 14.

In a statement, Mayor Hawkins said he would continue to serve as chair of the county committee as a consequence of Goldman’s decision.

"I am pleased that the court has reaffirmed my election as Orange Democratic Chairman," said the mayor. "Now that the leadership question has been clarified, I invite Ms. Eason to work alongside me and other active Orange Democrats to elect Barack Obama as our next President."

Read More >