WESTWOOD, N.J.—The borough enters its 126th year sounding a high note, with newly minted Republican Mayor Raymond Arroyo praising his immediate predecessor, Democrat John Birkner Jr., for a “tangible, visible, and durable” legacy earned over an unprecedented 12 years wielding the gavel.
And Birkner, yielding that gavel to Arroyo at the council’s Jan. 2 reorganization meeting—held at a packed Community Center—praised his successor and observed that the night was cause for celebration.
Birkner thanked his wife, Susan, and their children, Paris and Kyle.
“I have enjoyed 12 years as mayor of this wonderful town. We have celebrated together and we have mourned together. But it was always together that a vision for success was realized in full,” Birkner said.
He said, “My plan was never to set out to be a leader, but rather to make a difference. It was not about the role, it was always about a goal. It was overcoming adversity, criticism, and setbacks. But it was always about progress, hope, and positive change.”
He congratulated Arroyo, whom he said he was “proud to have known for so many years and have had the pleasure of working with while he served our community.”
Birkner explained, “I always said there were 25 mayors before me and there will be 25 more after me. Ray, you now begin that list. I wish you the best for continuing the positive progress and I know you will find there is no better elected office to hold than that of mayor. My best wishes to you for much success moving forward,” he added in part.
But it was Arroyo’s night. The borough’s 27th mayor, accompanied by his wife Jo Ann and son Christian, was sworn in by his 2018 “Always Westwood” council running mate Alyssa Dawson, now state Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi’s chief of staff.
Arroyo praised his running mates Rob Bicocchi and Beth Dell, incumbents who kept their seats and also were sworn in Jan. 2, for “a magnificent job laying out a truthful fact-based case campaign highlighting substantive accomplishments.”
He thanked the Westwood Republican County Committee, “who despite how hard I tried to dissuade them insisted that I be their mayoral candidate.”
In addition to Birkner he thanked former mayors Thomas Wanner and Skip Kelly, overall a trio he called “three very different mayors facing very different challenges and opportunities.”
As well, Arroyo praised “every councilmember and board professional with whom I’ve ever served—and that just scratches the surface.”
Under Arroyo, the council voted for Cheryl Hodges, one of three names put forward by the Westwood Republican County Committee, to fill out Arroyo’s council term, which ends Dec. 31, 2021.
Hodges is mother of Marine Sgt. Christopher Hrbek, who was killed in action, and wife of longtime Planning Board Chairman and past Westwood Fire Chief JayMee Hodges.
In his inaugural remarks, Arroyo acknowledged his elevation to mayor struck many as unlikely, given his initial narrow council reelection defeat in 2018 that proved to be a narrow victory, not determined until February 2019.
After he was certified the winner in that race and sworn in, he was voted to cheers as council president.
“In November 2018 I was a dead man walking until, Lazarus-like, I was summoned forth by [state Superior Court] Judge [Estela] De La Cruz,” Arroyo said of his post-campaign fight, which focused on improper mail-in ballots.
“When I was reinstated to the council last February some said I’d never win another election. That my challenge had angered too many people and that I’d be punished at the polls,” he said.
He added, “Instead you rewarded me this November, in part, I think, for taking a principled stand in 2018; but also for the quality of my 15 years of public service.”
Arroyo thanked “my biggest supporter, great neighbor, and dear friend Raymond Zorovich, who we lost last year. He is here in spirit and his legacy is here in both his sons and his grandson, who like his grandfather always has my back.”
Looking ahead, Arroyo said, “Other than correcting ongoing problems at the landfill, the potential sale of the Kmart property, and preparing for the ever-shifting shape of affordable housing mandate and its associated overdevelopment pressures, I am starting off on relatively calm seas.”
He said Westwood does not need “a hair-on-fire fundamental transformation. It merely needs experienced and commonsense leadership recommitted to the core mission of local government.”
That mission, he said: “Delivering essential services at the best possible price points, keeping the roads repaired, the kids playing on the fields, the PD patrolling our streets, the DPW staffed and equipped, the garbage picked up, the WWVFD and Ambulance Corps well supported in their efforts to keep us safe.”
Arroyo said, “This is the mundane work of local government. It’s not sexy or glamorous. But when it is done well every resident in the borough—young or old, black or white, gay or straight—reaps its benefits.”
He said “natural resistance to urbanizing over-development” is not just about increased density, traffic, and noise, and service demands, with higher costs.
“It has to do with perhaps losing the true heart of Westwood’s success, which is its strong sense of community, and the generous investment of precious social capital Westwood continues to inspire from its people,” he said.
“That investment is in our rich tradition of volunteerism. It’s the glue of reciprocal obligations that binds each of us—one to the other,” he said.
Arroyo said, “I don’t arrive at this conclusion out of fuzzy-headed nostalgia; I am clear-eyed about adopting and embracing necessary changes. The borough is not static.”
He noted that developments in and around the commercial zones have been ongoing through economies good and bad.
“Yet Westwood has always managed to stay current, desirable, and successful without losing its small-town essence,” he said.
Arroyo explained, “Our challenge as your mayor and council is to govern in a way that preserves Westwood as a desirable destination for aspiring young families 13 years from now.”
In a rhetorical flourish, Arroyo recounted what a local family explained in print on their reason for settling in the borough, then said he shared that vision, replete with modest single-family neighborhoods, barefoot toddlers running on grassy yards, and “Eagle Scouts still cheerfully improving Veterans [Memorial] and Hegeman parks.”
He took in “Little leaguers in colorful baseball uniforms, still holding their grandparents’ hands on their way to opening day at Meadowbrook,” and “seniors still strolling through a safe and walkable downtown—where everyone seems to get along.”
He said that ideal is, “Just like Westwood, beloved Westwood, always Westwood.”
