KATHLEEN DONOVAN FOR BERGEN COUNTY EXECUTIVE
BOB AVERY & BERNADETTE COGHLAN-WALSH FOR BERGEN COUNTY FREEHOLDER
Bergen County’s first woman executive leans on experience in bid for second term
OCTOBER 19, 2014, 3:08 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2014, 5:48 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Kathleen Donovan has held a variety of public jobs over the last 30 years, including public defender, assemblywoman, county clerk, Port Authority commissioner. Now, as Bergen County executive, she is seeking a second term.
While many people have helped her along the way, Donovan, a Republican from Rutherford, said she’s never really had anyone she would consider a mentor in politics.
That’s probably because in most cases she was the first woman to hold the job, Donovan said.
“Generally, you look to another woman, and there just weren’t any,” she said recently during an interview. “You had to figure it out yourself.”
Donovan was the first woman to represent the South Bergen legislative district 36. When she became county clerk in 1988, she was the first female constitutional officer in the state’s history. She was the first woman to chair the Port Authority commission, which she joined in 1994. In November 2010, she became the first woman elected Bergen County Executive.
In speeches, she sometimes reminds her audience that her mother was born at a time when women did not have the right to vote. In light of that, she considers it a “huge honor” that she has been elected several times and is part of government.
Donovan had a say in crafting the job she now holds. She was part of a charter commission that designed the county executive form of government approved by voters in 1985.
She was one of about 40 people who ran for the nonpartisan charter study commission.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen-county-s-first-woman-executive-leans-on-experience-in-bid-for-second-term-1.1112709#sthash.bW6zwEO4.dpuf
Did I read today that Tedesco is suing Donovan and her team for libel…?
Hilarious.