HANOVER TOWNSHIP — During the reorganization meeting of the Township of Hanover, Thomas “Ace” Gallagher was selected to be Hanover Township Mayor.
Mayor Thomas “Ace” Gallagher and Committeeman Ronald Francioli were sworn into their fourth and 15th three-year terms, respectively.
The oath of office was given to Ace by Morris County Sheriff James Gannon, and Morris County Commissioner Douglas Cabana gave Francioli’s oath of office.
Hanover Township’s governing body is a committee form of government; Annually, the committee members need to elect one of their own as mayor, as opposed to a council where the mayor is voted on directly by the public.
Committee Member Michael Mihalko was then elected to serve as Deputy Mayor.
John Ferramosca was Mayor during 2022. He was first chosen mayor in July 2020 when he took over for Francioli, who stepped down but remained on the committee.
Ferramosca was unanimously re-elected mayor at the 2021 reorganization meeting, and Committeeman Thomas “Ace” Gallagher was unanimously elected deputy mayor. The pair were unanimously re-elected to these positions during the 2022 reorganization meeting.
There are five committee members; the other members eligible for election are Brian Cahill and Michael Mihalko.
Francioli said before the election that he and Gallagher are running uncontested is a testament that the people of Hanover Township like what’s going on with the government that’s in place.
Thomas “Ace” Gallagher said, “I’ve had the honor and the pleasure of serving on The Hanover Township Committee for the past nine years, and just before this, I served for a few years on the K-8 Board of Education, so there is nothing new about me. The only new thing is I have a new title, and I only had this new title for approximately one hour.”
“My personality, style, work ethic, and determination are nothing new to many of my friends and colleagues. This will not change. If anything, my focus will accelerate in
implementing new structures to produce on an even higher level for residents of Hanover Township, which we as a body have already begun.”
“As a musician and ‘not being an athlete, ‘I refer to “Ensemble play,” or collaboration rather than teamwork, but it’s the same principle. I believe in the theory that a piece of thread is thin and not very strong, but when you put many pieces together, it will become a very strong rope. We have begun utilizing and putting this theory into practice more and more in Hanover Township. It truly is an incredible problem-solving tool. You are much less likely to fail when working together towards a common goal.”
“This concept and structure, when applied on a regional level, has already enabled us to take on serious issues that involve Hanover Township and our surrounding municipalities with very good results. To list some examples, we created aggressive regional partnerships to understand better and help people in need, especially in the areas of Drug and Alcohol Abuse and Mental Health. We truly believe these efforts have helped thousands and thousands of people, and we are proud to say The State of New Jersey has recognized this Coalition of wonderful people as a recipient of The Jefferson Awards by The Governor of New Jersey.”
“Another example of this type of outreach, several of us worked very hard to create — The Whippany/Passaic River Flood Remediation Task Force. We worked with four surrounding municipalities with several top experts to do a realistic analysis of The Whippany River from Morristown to 280 and The Passaic River from Chatham to Eagle Rock Ave in East Hanover. We identified 6 to 7 areas that are critical and need to be addressed if we truly expect to remediate any of our flooding issues. Also included in this analysis were hard recommendations and a sliding chart of potential costs. Needless to say, this is big money that we do not have. On December 23, we were notified that we were approved for $1.8
Million Dollars from the Federal Government. This will absolutely get us started on this major long overdue infrastructure improvement, and this is just the beginning.
That is real money and will benefit Hanover Township immensely,” continued Gallagher.
“I refer to Trust and Respect quite a bit. Trust and respect must be earned, and in a perfect world, that should be unconditional. But we know this isn’t a perfect world, but we can work a little bit harder to make our piece a little bit better.”
Gallagher said, “There is a new detail that Committeeman Brian Cahill will take the lead on: “HR Succession.” This is a new structure we have put in place to better prepare Hanover Township for the future on the professional side. An additional succession plan we will also be launching right away is a major outreach plan to encourage more and more of our residents to get more involved in any of our boards, committees, councils, or commissions.”
