Janice Morrell

Judge Michelle Hollar-Gregory swears in Mayor Eldridge Hawkins, left, as Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) looks on. 

ORANGE - The son of a former beauty queen and crusading Civil Rights attorney, Eldridge Hawkins, Jr., took the oath of office today as Mayor of the City of Orange in a well-attended and star-studded ceremony in the Middle School auditorium.

"On Day One of our new administration, I don’t say to you, 'Just watch what I can do in City Hall,'" the new mayor challenged the crowd. "Instead, I say, 'Get involved in every way that you can.' Together we will create new ways for you to participate in the building of a better and more prosperous Orange.

"And I say, 'Come with me to City Hall, and together, we’re going to turn our city around!' The future is now!"

Elected two months ago to replace the now convicted Mayor Mims Hackett, Hawkins literally walked up a red carpet rolled out onto the concrete in front of the school, and faced a sea of Orange residents and luminaries that included singing star Dionne Warwick.

ORANGE - With Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1) planning a swing through Zoning Board Chair Janice MorrellOrange on Tuesday, Zoning Board Chair and mayoral candidate Janice Morrell prepared to take him on a tour of several of the city’s senior high-rises.

When Andrews, a candidate for U.S. Senate in next month’s Democratic Primary, abruptly canceled his walk with Morrell, his campaign cited a scheduling conflict.

But Morrell, who came in fourth in a field of six on Election Day in her quest to be the next mayor of Orange, said she still wants Andrews to come to her city.

"I want someone to do something about those seniors living in those buildings," said Morrell. "They’ve been ignored for so long."

Morrell campaign manager Peter Learmont, left, and Morrell supporter Royland Cain 

ORANGE - In front of the Love of Jesus Church, Peter Learmont, campaign manager for Janice Morrell, urges a Donald Page supporter to abandon her backing of the long-serving councilman and side with the Morrell campaign.

He meets resistance.

"When they tried to raise my taxes, Donald Page voted 'no,'" Ollie Marshall-Rico says.

ORANGE - Newark Mayor Cory Booker todayNewark Mayor Cory Booker lent his public support to the mayoral candidacy of Eldridge Hawkins, Jr.

"I know what it takes to restore hope and a new direction to a city in crisis," Booker wrote in a message to Orange voters that appeared on Hawkins campaign mailers throughout the Essex County city on the eve of the last weekend before Election Day.

"Eldridge Hawkins has the competence, good ideas and determination to create a bright future for Orange," Booker wrote of the 28-year old West Orange police officer.

ORANGE - The city at its summit straddles a ridge in the western hill country of Essex County, where affordable housing high-rises loom over residential twoPlanning Board chairman Dwight Holmes and his wife, Beverly. and three stories and churches, the public library, the Elks Lodge and Main Street, packed into 2.2-square miles with an elevated train track cutting along the edge of the valley and Highway 280 splitting the city in half.

Orange lost its once formidable industrial base on the south side over four decades ago, and now it’s trying to shake off the after-effects of its mayor’s tumble from power.

None of Mims Hackett’s would-be successors disagrees that the Abbott District town needs redevelopment, and all six of them are willing to work with the Berg Development Corporation, its partners and other developers to see the fruition of commercial and residential projects.

At Large Councilman Donald Page 

ORANGE - The foes of At-Large Councilman Donald Page say he’s a chronic naysayer and grandstander, the kind of councilman who’s been so determinedly anti-administration that if he gains the executive’s chair himself he will short circuit for lack of knowing any role other than agitating underdog.

"Page is a no-vote on the city council," says Tency Eason supporter William Hathaway. "Every time he votes, he votes no. He’s there to bring a negative vibe to Orange."

Betty Brown and Orange Police Sgt. Kerry Coley.

She wishes she could have been the one to vanquish Mims Hackett.

But while other politicians were either lining up behind him, or still in college, or getting steam-rolled in Senate campaigns against Dick Codey, activist Betty Brown was challenging Hackett head-on.

Eldridge Hawkins, Jr. 

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.

Zoning Board Chair Janice Morrell

ORANGE - Long serving zoning board chair Janice Morrell has a circle of supporters who follow those meetings, and who swear that in terms of integrity and preparation, she is unmatched among the field of mayoral candidates.

A retired director of minority affairs at Rutgers University, Morrell works by the book, particularly when it comes to Orange development projects. Even someone’s off-handed remark about the state Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) exacting measures in overseeing the remediation of the Berg Hat Factory produces a stern gaze from Morrell.

North Ward Concilwoman Tency Eason 

ORANGE - If Donald Page can boast that he’s the candidate in the race who has most actively opposed Mayor Mims Hackett, North Ward Councilwoman Tency Eason is the only person who can rightfully argue that she has already defeated Page.

When she challenged the sitting North Ward councilman with Hackett’s blessing in 2002, she beat him by ten votes.