FLORHAM PARK — Florham Park Mayor Mark Taylor led the Republican Primary with 68.55% of the vote. There are no Democratic challengers in the November General Election.

Mark has been the Mayor of Florham Park for over six years. He is a lifelong resident of Florham Park and the fifth child of Frank and Mickey Taylor. His parents moved to Florham Park in 1952 and lived and raised a family until their passing in 1984-85.

He is married to Janet Taylor for thirty years and has two great children. Erin is 24 and Christopher is 21.

Taylor has worked as an account executive in the automotive aftermarket for 39 years. He is a Senior Associate with Kam Marketing,  a manufacturer’s representative firm headquartered in Greenville, DE. He has been with Kam Marketing for over 24 years. During his employment he has received many sales awards for excelling in sales and growth in his territory.  In 2016 the Kam Marketing sales force received the highest award given in the business. They were chosen as the Representative of the year by SEMA.

Some of Mark’s achievements include:

• Member of the Florham Park Jaycees and past President 2004.
• 2005 named as national Jaycees President of the year.
• Member of Board of Directors Morris County League of Municipalities
• Member of Florham Park Rotary
• Member of the Sons of Post 43 American Legion
• Co-Founder of the NJ Coalition for Education and Positive Choices
• Appointed to the Council in 2006 following a nomination from the County Committee. He severed as Council President three times before taking the post as Mayor in 2013. He was also unanimously selected by the County Committee to take the role as Mayor of Florham Park.  He has subsequently run three times for Mayor.

Taylor has been a champion of numerous open space projects.  Chairing the grant committee for more than seven open space applications to the County Open Space Committee. He was able to successfully receive grants to purchase property for permanent open space status. Taylor’s largest achievement was obtaining a grant for the purchase of the Fish Farm 11 Acre site, slated for an 11 home subdivision. This property will be persevered forever as open space.  He also served for a three year term on the Morris County Open Space committee.

Mark has been on the Historic Preservation Commission and severed as Chairman on one of the first Grand applications awarded to the Little Red School House for new heat and air conditioning.  This was done to preserve the artifacts inside the building.

After joining the council, Mark has been a member of the Liaison to the Town Center Task Force.  This Task Force helped to mold the list of improvements to buildings in the downtown area.

He developed and brought the first Tree Ordinance to the Boro Council and that Ordinance was passed and is in place for the betterment of Florham Park today.

Taylor worked side by side with former Mayor Scott Eveland on the donation of some 110 acres of property on Elm Street from the Rockefeller Group to the Boro of Florham Park; He worked with Mayor Eveland and many of the council members on the transformation of the 19 acres to new fields that were later constructed and now named “Volunteers Park”. This was the first new athletic fields project in more than 50 years in Florham Park. His opponent voted NO on this project. This has been the single greatest addition to Florham Park for our children.

Taylor has worked tirelessly on growing back our commercial tax ratable base.  Under my leadership we have added close to $500,000.00 in new assessed value ratable in commercial properties.  This has been the catalyst to the ability to deliver a budget under 2% for many years. As a long time Planning Board member, he has worked with the Planning Board members to improve the downtown and the complete transformation of the former Exxon site to the Green at Florham Park developed by the Rockefeller Group.

Costs continue to rise on healthcare and pensions for the great town employees, the Police and DPW workers and  Library employees and the members of the governing body have been tasked with continuing to deliver the services that all residents deserve with the very lowest increases in taxes.

Florham Park has the second lowest tax rate in the 39 Morris County communities.  This has been a continued effort of the Council members working closely with the finance team.

Mark continued talking about the Florham Park AAA bond rating. “A few years back the Boro was challenged by one of the leading three names in bond ratings agencies.  Moody’s contacted the Boro of Florham Park to do a review and a possible downgrade to the credit rating prior to meeting with them. I stepped up with my Team consisting of the CFO Patrice Visco, our Budget Consultant Jon Rheinhardt, the Boro’s auditor, Raymond G. Sarinelli, Business Administrator Bill Huyler, Councilman Charlie Malone and myself and conducted what was one of the best business plans for today and the future that the representative from Moody’s had ever seen. That was his words not mine.”

“Following that meeting with Moody’s we received a very supportive letter holding the AAA bond rating for the Boro of Florham Park.  This is a very significant achievement for the town and only 16 towns in New Jersey have this rating. Moody’s has been back two more times in recent years only to clarify our financial plan is a sound plan for today and for the foreseeable future,” he said.

Taylor has worked with the Board of Education on many projects including a very large issue concerning our state aid to the K-8 school system.   He hosted several conference calls with State Representatives in the Governor’s Office, and then a follow up meeting in Trenton with Superintendent Melissa Varley, BOE President Nick Retrivi and Business Administrator John Csatlos. The thrust of these conference calls and the subsequent meeting in Trenton was to increase the state aid for the schools. Florham Park Board of Education was given the good news by state representatives that they would receive 13% additional funding for the 2019-2020 calendar year.

Florham Park is blessed as a community to have the services of the Florham Park Fire Department and the Members of the Memorial First Aid Squad. He does everything he can to help these members and he respects what they do for the Boro on daily basis. Please contact either of these organizations if you would like to join.

Fair Share housing in Florham Park. Florham Park has been tasked with a very high burden of our share of Low / Moderate income housing. The first numbers Florham Park received from the Superior Court under what is called the third round of obligations was not good. Florham Park was assessed at 1082 units. Taylor’s team members fought this obligation and settled on a much lower but still huge amount of 624 units. The Planning Board and the Council has done a magnificent job in mitigating this number by delivering some very low traffic products to the mix. This will include 102 units counting as COAH units. This product is called Supportive housing built by the Rockefeller Group for the United Way of Bergen County. Florham Park will also have a large number of over 55 years of age and no school age children in another addition of housing to the Boro. And finally many one bedroom units in another project will further helping with lower traffic in town.

FLORHAM PARK —  Jacob Rothschild was honored at Union College’s annual Prize Day celebration.

Students were honored for achievement in academics, research, service and governance. Rothschild, a member of the Class of 2019, was honored with the General Electric Energy Steinmetz Award, to a senior in mechanical engineering who completes the best senior project.

Union College, founded in 1795 as the first college chartered by the New York State Board of Regents, offers programs in the liberal arts and engineering to 2,100 undergraduates of high academic promise and strong personal motivation.

Union, with its long history of blending disciplines, is a leader in educating students to be engaged, innovative and ethical contributors to an increasingly diverse, global and technologically complex society.