SAYREVILLE – Sayreville’s first new mayor in 20 years and first female mayor in more than 50 years has officially taken office to begin serving the borough.
At the Borough Council’s Jan. 1 reorganization meeting, Victoria Kilpatrick was sworn into a four-year term as the mayor of Sayreville after emerging victorious in the Nov. 5 election. Oaths of office were also administered to the election’s winning Borough Council candidates, Michele Cassidy Maher and Donna Roberts, who were sworn into three-year terms on the governing body.
As Kilpatrick was a member of the council prior to her election, her council seat was vacated. Council members will appoint a resident who is a member of Kilpatrick’s Democratic Party to a one-year term in the seat.
Kilpatrick is the borough’s first mayor since the departure of longtime official Kennedy O’Brien, who did not seek re-election in 2019. Having held office for 20 years, O’Brien is the longest-serving mayor in Sayreville’s history.
Prior to 2020, O’Brien was the only Republican member of the governing body. With his departure, Democrats will hold the mayor’s office for the first time in 20 years. Republicans claimed one council seat in the 2019 election following Roberts’ victory, while the remaining five seats are held by Democrats.
Since its incorporation, Kilpatrick is the second female mayor of Sayreville. Peggy Kerr, the first woman to be elected mayor in the borough, took office in 1968, with 52 years separating Sayreville’s two female mayors.
After thanking her family, Kilpatrick noted that Kerr was elected alongside three female running mates for council in 1967, leading to four women being seated on the dais. Like 1968, Kilpatrick pointed out that four women were once again on the dais in 2020 – herself, Maher, Roberts and Council President Mary Novak.
“I believe that this was our opportunity once again to have a female seated in the middle, but ironically enough, right here not only do you have a female mayor, but you also have three councilwomen sitting among you,” Kilpatrick said. “In 1967, that exact same thing happened. There are a total of four women on the council and for those that have lived here a long time, you may have even remembered hearing the statement that Sayreville was being run by ‘Petticoat Junction.’ I may not wear a petticoat, I just recently discovered blazers, but I do believe that the mission that those four women sought to fight back against was, surprisingly, overdevelopment. That is what inspired Mayor Kerr to stand up and actually try and make a change in her town. Over 50 years later, it surprises me that we are fighting almost that same fight.
“We still have to turn around and find a way to come up with a plan for Sayreville for our future,” she continued. “Overdevelopment is something that has been discussed and hotly debated on this dais now in the five years that I’ve been elected as a council person. The fact that it was still an issue 50 years ago makes me wonder how far have we really come.”
Kilpatrick concluded her comments by calling for unity among residents as they all work together on finding solutions to the issues facing Sayreville.
“I am looking forward to serving with this board,” the mayor said. “I am looking forward to serving with each and every person up here. I’m looking forward to the new vision that we are going to bring and, more importantly, I’m looking forward to the residents to come up and remind us that we work for you. But I also want you to remember as residents that we are council people, but we live here too. Our decisions impact our lives as well.
“In a time where you turn on the TV and politics seems to be extremely divisive, extremely polarizing, I do not want that for Sayreville. This election was a tough election. I think this election shows where we are as a country. I want to stand for unity. I want to stand for teamwork. I’ve been a coach for almost 20 years and a coach knows that the strength of your team is not based on one single person, but on how every single player comes to that game ready to play and prepared to play. This may not be a game, this is real life, but I really truly believe that a good leader doesn’t dictate what gets done, but allows the people that are sitting among them, allows the people that are on that field to actually be the leaders and bring other people in.
“I don’t want to be standing on this field alone and I’m not,” Kilpatrick said. “I want the people watching to be instrumental and play a part of this as well. So moving forward, I truly hope that we are going to be able to do more for Sayreville than you’ve ever seen and honor the history that we have here, but continue to move us forward to a much brighter and better future.”
Kilpatrick was elected by a gap of six votes. A recount took place on Dec. 5 following the Nov. 5 general election. Republican candidate Arthur Rittenhouse officially filed a petition in New Jersey Superior Court on Dec. 13 to seek a recount of the election due to what he deems “many irregularities.” The case is yet to be determined.
