Tency Eason

 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."

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.

Mayor-elect Eldridge Hawkins, Jr., tonight defeated CouncilwomanEldridge Hawkins, Jr. Tency Eason for Democratic Party  chair of Orange.

Hawkins won 15 to Eason's 14 votes to succeed former Mayor Mims Hackett, who served as chairman in addition to his duties as mayor. Hackett relinquished his mayor's seat last month after pleading guilty to attempted extortion.

Eason, who unsuccessfully opposed Hawkins in the mayor's contest last month, said she means to challenge the outcome of tonight's chairman's race.

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 - On the last full week of the mayor's race here, At LargeAt Large Councilman Donald Page Councilman Donald Page and West Orange Patrolman Eldridge Hawkins lead the pack in overall financial contributions and have opened up on each other in a mail war.

According to the state Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), Hawkins has raised $67,395, including $25,273 in the last period, leaving him with $19,146 in the bank.

Page has raised $41,148, including $11,210 in this period. He has aEldridge Hawkins, Jr. closing balance of $5,416, according to ELEC.

The Hawkins campaign did a lit. drop early this week that charges the councilman with racking up $21,000 of travel expenses over the years he has been in office, while the Page campaign blasted away at Hawkins’s short time as an Orange resident, noting that he voted in his first election here in June of last year.

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.

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.