Mendham Borough is governed under the Borough form of New Jersey municipal government. The governing body consists of a Mayor and a Borough Council comprising six council members, with all positions elected at-large on a partisan basis as part of the November general election. A Mayor is elected directly by the voters to a four-year term of office. The Borough Council consists of six members elected to serve three-year terms on a staggered basis, with two seats coming up for election each year in a three-year cycle.
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RESOLVE OUTSTANDING ISSUES: Mendham Borough needs to find a resolution to the 5-story development behind King’s that is acceptable to the community, doesn’t violate environmental regulations, and can be settled without expensive court battles.
RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT: Mendham Borough residents should have opportunities for input before major decisions are made. We plan to make MendhamNJ.org “information central,” alerting the community to resolutions coming before the Council and posting recordings of all Council meetings. Weekly office hours will be standard so residents can air concerns and share suggestions for a better Mendham.
PROACTIVE PLANNING: Mendham Borough needs to stop kicking the can down the road on New Jersey’s court-ordered affordable housing mandates and create a master plan to satisfy present and upcoming requirements in a way that enhances our community.
Mark Washburne’s background in business, academia, and civic affairs equips him well to serve as mayor of Mendham Borough. He has lived in Mendham Borough since 2004 and Morris County since 1969. Washburne, along with his wife Diane, live in the Mendham Commons. He has also taught at the County College of Morris for over 30 years, where he worked his way up from an Adjunct Professor to the highest teaching level at the college as a full Professor of History and Political Science.
In 1974, Mark Washburne graduated from Bayley-Ellard High School in nearby Madison. Washburne next attended Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he graduated in 1978 with a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science and in 1979 with Master's Degree in the same subject. In 1986, Washburne also completed an M. B. A. in Marketing from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison. Mark Washburne is also an author and has written a seven-volume biography of Illinois Civil War Congressman, Secretary of State under President Grant, and Minister to France during the Franco-Prussian War, Elihu Benjamin Washburne, a distant cousin.
Mark Washburne next hopes to use his vast teaching, business, and civic experience serving the people of Mendham Borough as its next Mayor. While the special mayoral election is only for a year to fulfill the remaining time of office for the resigning mayor, Washburne hopes to use the year working on a better community solution to the housing crisis created by the failure of our current elected officials to plan for and address court mandates concerning affordable housing that all the towns in New Jersey are facing. The result is we now have a new 5-story development proposed behind the King’s Shopping Center that has limited support in the community. Instead of spending precious Borough tax dollars on endless lawsuits against environmental groups and the state, Washburne would like to attack the issue of growth, that includes affordable housing units, head on by developing a master plan for the Borough that addresses the problem now and in the future.
Mark Washburne would also like to address in his year in office some quality of life issues, including encouraging private companies to build public electric vehicle chargers. Presently, there are no public chargers in Mendham.
Federal immigration has directly or indirectly impacted the entire state. Mark Washburne would address it by making sure that all people impacted by it were given due process as outlined in the Federal and state constitutions of our country.
Mark Washburne would make sure that all new housing and road development met strict environmental standards before being improved.
