Englewood Mayor, Councilwoman Take Oaths of Office

Englewood Mayor Frank Huttle III and At-Large Councilwoman Lynne H. Algrant took the oath of office Tuesday and were elected council president and president pro tempore, respectively, when the Englewood City Council held its annual reorganization meeting.

Huttle and Algrant were both reelected in November when both ran unopposed.

“I’m grateful for the support of the residents of Englewood, and I continue to strive to earn that support every day,” Algrant said. “These last few years and next few are a very strange time to be in elective office and in public [service]. Trust and confidence in government are at historic lows.”

She said 2013 would be “another tough year” for the City Council with hard budget decisions to make and groundwork needing to be laid for how to structure city services for what she called “the new economic normal and the post-Sandy world.”

“At the same time, we have exciting opportunities to pursue, both short-term and long-term, to strengthen ourselves as an economically vibrant, diverse and sustainable city,” she said. “I am … grateful for the opportunity to do this work in this amazing city in this important time.”

Huttle said the City Council’s strides toward creating what he said has become a “more efficient Englewood” were made as a team. He noted that since he was elected mayor in 2010, Englewood got “a completely new council,” starting with Algrant, who ran with Huttle in 2010, and then being joined, in order, by Ward 2 Councilman Michael D. Cohen, Ward 1 Councilman Marc Forman, Ward 3 Councilman Eugene Skurnick and Ward 4 Councilman Wayne Hamer.

“And with [the new council] comes a renewed energy,” Huttle said.

Hamer was also elected in November, winning the fourth ward council left vacant by the death of longtime public servant Jack Drakeford, whom Huttle recognized Tuesday for his many years of service to the city.

“[Drakeford] lives in the history and spirit of Englewood, and [he] will never be forgotten,” Huttle said. “He will always be looking upon the city he loved so dearly; he has been sitting in this room until tonight for close to 50 years. We all miss Jack.”

Huttle also said that while government faces “new and unprecedented challenges” at all levels, the Englewood City Council is poised to meet those challenges head-on.

“I was honored and humbled by my election [in 2010], and I am even more grateful now that Englewood residents have given me three more years to continue the work of bringing change to our city,” Huttle said.

Among the many dignitaries and elected officials who turned up at the Municipal Court on South Van Brunt Street for the reorganization meeting Tuesday was U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), who was also elected in November to represent New Jersey’s redrawn 9th Congressional district.

“Englewood, you’ve done well—in your state legislators, in your local legislators and definitely of course with your mayor,” Pascrell said. “I want you to know I intend to keep my commitments to you and not get lost. I like Englewood. I like your shops, but I like your people.”