First Muslim Mayor of Teaneck

By Howard Prosnitz, Staff Writer

Teaneck Suburbanite, July 8, 2010

The council chose Mohammed Hameeduddin as Teaneck’s mayor for the next two years, and Adam Gussen as deputy mayor at an outdoor reorganization meeting in the municipal complex parking lot on July 1. Hameeduddin is the first Muslim mayor in Bergen County and one of only three in New Jersey.

The crowd of almost 100 persons seated in folding chairs also witnessed the swearing in of the four victors of the May 11 election - Gussen, Elie Y. Katz, Lizette Parker and Emil "Yitz" Stern. All will serve four year terms and all are incumbents, except Stern, who was a council member from 1998-2006.

Under Teaneck’s form of government, council members choose the mayor and deputy mayor from their own ranks, and the office of mayor was bitterly contested with numerous residents, including former mayor Jacqueline Kates, speaking in support of Parker at two June council meetings.

Parker, who had served as deputy mayor since her first election to the council in 2006, was the top vote getter in the 2010 election, and supporters contended that a Teaneck tradition gives the mayoralty to the top vote getter and the office of deputy mayor to the runner up.

But Councilman Elie Y. Katz said he had researched the issue and found that only three times in the past 32 years has the front runner become mayor.

Parker and Councilwoman Barbara Toffler voted for Parker for mayor. The other five councilmembers chose Hameeduddin.

For deputy mayor, Parker voted for Toffler and Toffler, for Parker. The others voted for Gussen.

Some Parker supporters alleged that she was passed over because she is an African-American and a woman.

Councilwoman Monica Honis asserted that race and sex were not issues in the selection of mayor.

"Six years ago we did not have a nasty, dirty or divisive election cycle, but four years ago the tide turned," Honis said, noting that the choice of Hameeduddin over Parker was a matter of policy. "It is a disservice to the women’s movement and the civil rights movement to cry racism and sexism. What I heard (at a recent council meeting) was frightening. No one is walking the middle line."

Mildred Tucker, a community activist from the northeast section of the township, said that she would be paying close attention to the council, including filing requests for township contracts under the Open Public Records Act.

"I question the integrity of some of you. I question the contracts and the wheeling and dealing that you do," Tucker said.

But resident Barbara Shapiro noted that awarding the mayoralty to the highest vote getter has become irrelevant because council members today run for staggered terms.

"I am pained to hear many of these comments tonight. Seven members do not run at the same time," she said.

BOE member Gervonn Romney Rice observed that the town had become "fractionalized."

"You have a lot of fences to mend," she admonished the council. "Many people have been hurt by the school budget cuts. We will be watching and making sure that you attend every council meeting and that you are actively working for the township and that part of that work will be in behalf of the children of Teaneck."

Stuyvesant Road resident Gwen Ace also encouraged residents to communicate and put away their hostile feelings.

"We need to take time out to listen to each other. We have to start to heal because of we don’t the town will not survive," she said.

Katz, a former mayor, applauded the council’s new leaders, recalling an incident during the 2008 campaign where a rabbi refused to sign the election petition of a Jewish candidate but signed Hameeduddin’s. "I am proud of the Council's new leadership. Mohammed and Adam are both strong, sincere, accessible and dedicated community representatives and Teaneck will benefit by having them as our new Mayor and Deputy Mayor," he said.

Both Hameeduddin and Gussen, former classmates at Teaneck High School and Rutgers, pledged to work at reducing the tax burden on residents.

"I look forward to working with my colleagues to continue to find ways to reduce spending and bring in alternative sources of revenue," Hameeduddin said in an e-mail.

Gussen wrote: "In these times of unprecedented economic hardship and disarray of state finances, there are three things on which we need to focus: cost savings through efficiencies in our operations, non-Tax revenue generation, and real shared service initiatives with local municipalities and our own Board of Education. "