By Joanne Degnan, Staff Writer
UPPER FREEHOLD — LoriSue Horsnall Mount, the first female mayor in Upper Freehold Township’s 280-year history, took the reins of government last week at the Township Committee’s annual reorganization meeting.
Township Committeeman Bob Faber, who has been on the committee since 2007, was selected by his colleagues to serve as deputy mayor for 2011.
Mrs. Mount said Tuesday she was honored to serve her community, but she also tried to downplay the fuss about the historic nature of her selection as mayor, saying her “gender should not be an issue.”
”In my family growing up I was never treated any differently and was always encouraged to do what I wanted without regard to being a female,” said Mrs. Mount, who is the director of sales operations for Allentown Inc., a private company that manufactures equipment for biomedical research facilities.
In other action at the Jan. 6 reorganization, the Township Committee also adopted a $2.68 million temporary budget, which enables the government to function until a permanent municipal spending plan can be developed and adopted. The temporary budget includes a current operating fund of $976,026; debt service of $1.5 million; and a capital projects fund of $200,000.
Professional staff reappointments also were made at the reorganization meeting, including Granville D. Magee as township attorney and Glenn Gerken as township engineer.
The main event, however, was the swearing-in of Mrs. Mount and Stanley Moslowski Jr. to their second three-year terms on the Township Committee, and the unanimous selection of Ms. Mount as mayor. Under the Township Committee form of government, the committee members appoint the mayor and deputy mayor for one-year terms, and in Upper Freehold, the job is rotated annually.
Mr. Moslowski served as mayor in 2010 and Mrs. Mount was deputy mayor last year. Mrs. Mount and Mr. Moslowski ran uncontested races for their Township Committee seats on the Republican ticket last fall.
Mrs. Mount, 46, of Meirs Road, has been a trailblazer in her career before. She was the first and only woman ever elected to the Township Committee in November 2007 and the first female volunteer firefighter at the Hope Fire Company, where she rode the truck and fought the fires with the men from 1982 to 1992.
”I lived next to the firehouse and it just seemed like the natural thing to do,” Mrs. Mount said. “If time allowed, I would be back in a second.”
The fire service has been a family affair. Mrs. Mount’s father, David W. Horsnall, is a longtime volunteer and past chief of the Hope Fire Company, as was her maternal grandfather. Her late mother, Margaret, was a member of the Ladies Auxiliary, she said.
”My husband, Everett, and I went through fire school together,” she said. “My brother, David, is the one that made it a career and was the first career firefighter in Robbinsville. He has been there for 22 years.”
Politics also runs deep in the Horsnall and Mount families. Mrs. Mount’s mother was active in Republican politics before her death in 2006 and her father served 12 years on the Upper Freehold Township Committee, and also is a past mayor. Mrs. Mount’s mother-in-law, Audrey Mount, was sworn-in as a Borough Council member in Allentown last week.
Facing a tough budget year ahead, Mrs. Mount intends to rely more on her political moxie than her political roots. The challenge will be to provide the essential services residents expect and keep taxes affordable, she said.
