Photo Courtesy of Sheena Collum
From left are South Orange trustees Mark Rosner, Sheena Collum, Howard Levison and Deborah Davis Ford. Collum is running for village president, and Rosner, Levison and Davis Ford are seeking to keep their seats on the board.
SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — Village presidential candidate Sheena Collum and her incumbent trustee running mates Deborah Davis Ford, Howard Levison and Mark Rosner were certified by the South Orange Village Clerk’s Office on Monday, March 9, having collected the required number of petitions of nomination to appear on the municipal ballot in May, according to a release from the candidates.
Under the banner “South Orange 2015,” the campaign announced its kickoff event, to be held Sunday, March 15, from 3 to 5 p.m. at Above Restaurant and Bar.
“We hope to share with the community our dreams and action plan for the future of our village, and also solicit feedback on how we can improve on where we are today and the challenges moving forward,” Collum said in the release.
A first-term trustee and 14-year community volunteer, Collum has spearheaded several new initiatives including: a focus on Irvington Avenue revitalization, improving senior citizen services with the expansion of transportation options, orchestrating a townwide business code review, and launching a Great Streets matching grant program to support local business improvements. As chairwoman of the Public Safety Committee, Collum has worked closely with Levison on information technology upgrades to improve the overall efficiency of the police department, and has focused on quality-of-life issues, community relations and pedestrian safety enforcement. The village has seen a steady decline in crime with 2014 numbers showing a 24-percent reduction in crime from 2013, according to the release. Professionally, Collum is the executive director of the American Planning Association’s New Jersey Chapter. She is a proud alumna of Seton Hall University, graduating summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in public administration with a concentration in public policy.
Elected in 2007, Levison chairs the village’s Finance and Information Technology Committee, where he has helped restructure debt to capitalize on historically low interest rates — saving the village approximately $400,000 per year, according to the release. Levison was also instrumental in reducing the village’s telephone and utility costs, saving more than $100,000 per year. Levison worked to terminate the contract with East Orange Water Commission and secure New Jersey American Water as an alternate water supplier as well as introducing single-stream recycling. Professionally, Levison has developed solutions and improved efficiency across management, information systems and engineering capacities at large manufacturing, financial, service and health care organizations. Levison has a B.S. and M.S. in industrial engineering and operations research from New York University.
Davis Ford has served as a trustee since 2007 and chairs the village’s Legal and Personnel Committee. She has coordinated the effort to streamline the Personnel Policy and Procedures Manual for employees, worked on single source employer medical relationship for pre-employment, workers compensation and sick-leave evaluations, significantly reducing lost work days, and introduced a standardized employee performance evaluation process ensuring greater accountability among employees. Professionally, Davis Ford serves as clerk to the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders and brings a 20-year track record of corporate experience in the field of personnel training and development and client management, having served as a corporate client manager at a large pharmaceutical company and a director of a professional services firm providing IT staffing, project management and managed services solutions.
Mark Rosner, the longest standing member of the governing body, has served as a trustee since 1998. For the past several years, Rosner has chaired the village’s Planning and Zoning Committee where he is currently overseeing a comprehensive re-writing of the village’s Master Plan and has been intimately involved with the village’s successful redevelopment projects including the Gateway, and Third and Valley. Professionally, Rosner has been in the insurance business for 30 years and is the insurance brokerage director at the Integrated Financial Concepts office of NL Financial Alliance. He is a regular on the train to NYC and can often be found talking local politics with commuters.
For more information on South Orange 2015, visit facebook.com/SouthOrange2015.
The March 19 edition of the News-Record will contain more candidate announcements for the May election in South Orange.