On April 10th,
2008, the Glen Ridge Kiwanis Club, in conjunction with the Glen Ridge
Women’s Club and volunteer organizations throughout town held a special
reception called A Celebration of Volunteerism to honor Former Mayor Carl
Bergmanson, and all of Glen
Ridge’s many volunteers.
The celebrants with Mayors Callahan,
Bergmanson and Hughes in the front
Mayor Hughes spoke about his predecessor:
Mayor Peter Hughes spoke
about Mayor Bergmanson’s many accomplishments, and the importance of
volunteerism in Glen
Ridge. Here is the text
of his speech:
I want to thank Jeff Monacelli and Lynne Oliver and the rest of the Kiwanis
Club members for inviting us all here tonight. Celebrating Volunteerism in Glen Ridge
and more specifically celebrating and recognizing the accomplishments
of my predecessor, former Mayor, Carl Bergmanson is important, and we
should not miss the opportunity to recognize and highlight the value of
volunteer service to the Borough.
I would venture that virtually everyone
in this room tonight has at some point in time volunteered
their time, talents and energy to the Borough. I made a quick list of all of
the volunteer organizations here in town that I could think of and I came up
with 30, and I’m sure that I did not capture
them all. 30 or more groups that
comprise hundreds of volunteers who contribute thousands of hours that
amounts to tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings to the
Borough. We are all volunteers
who together insure the quality of life we expect from our Town, and provide
any number of essential services that a small government cannot. On the governmental side, I am
thinking not only of the Mayor and Council and Board of ED, but also of the
Boards of Adjustment and the Planning Board, the Board of Health, HPC, MAC, CCC, Ch 36, and Library Trustees. On the Service side,
there is the Home and School, GRAA, Volunteer
Ambulance Squad, Freeman Gardens Assn, Glen Ridge Educational foundation, Womens’ Club, Booster Club, Band Parents Assn,
Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs, Community Fund, Golden Circle, Historical Society,
Girls and Boy Scouts and the Art Patrons.
Governor Corzine is pushing to have
towns like ours consolidate on the grounds that
smaller towns are less efficient than larger towns. We know that’s
simply not true. If we had to pay
for all of the contributions that are made each day
to our town by the volunteers here tonight, we could not do what we do at
twice the cost of what we currently spend. That’s
why it is very important that we keep up the tradition of Volunteerism that
is exemplified by our own Carl Bergmanson. Without people like Carl, and all of
us in the room who are willing to get involved, our Town will change and
perhaps fundamentally.
Now Carl is not your typical Glen Ridge
volunteer, at least in my book.
Anyone who plays tackle football at his age, in shorts, in sub zero
weather is as my grandmother would say “a bit
daft”. Your typical Glen Ridge guy does not lay claim to represent the
values of the Whig Party, drive a vintage station wagon, or root for the Minnesota
Vikings in the heart of Giants Country. (If you’re
not sure what the Whigs were, do what I did and look it up!) But your typical
Glen Ridge guy doesn’t have the
resume of service to the Borough that Carl has:
Councilman from
1991-1999 (9 years)
Council
President 1996
Police
Commissioner for 5 years
Mayor 2004-2008
Member at
various times of both the Board of Adjustment and Planning Board
Founder
of the children’s games at the Memorial Day Parade at Hurrell Field
Founder of the
Lorraine Street Committee for a radium free Glen Ridge
Member of the
pool team and past trustee of the community pool
In addition to all of that, Carl is a
member of the Kiwanis club and the gas lamp players
theatre group.
That’s a heck of a
list. But a list can’t capture the spirit of a
guy that stood up for what he believed in, spoke his mind freely,
wasn’t afraid of controversy, and worked hard for change. In his 4
years as Mayor, in a time when outside sources of funding essentially dried
up, Carl spearheaded the largest number of capital improvements made to the
borough - ever. Virtually every important public building in town will be improved by the work he initiated. In addition to improvements made to
Town Hall, the Library, and the Public Safety building, our public works yard
will be completely redone and all of our
recreational fields significantly improved. New historic lights in the center of
Town will improve visibility and safety along Bloomfield Ave, and the bridge over
Toney’s brook in the Glen will bring access and new life to that park.
None of this was easy, Carl: you
didn’t win all of your “turf battles” or succeed in making
all of the changes you wanted: Glen Ridge is still part of Essex County, the
governor is still in the statehouse, and the solar system is made up of eight
not nine planets!
Of all of your accomplishments Carl,
the one that made the most impression on me personally was not any of the
capital improvements covered by the bond, or the pool, or the efforts to push
for the radon remediation at Carteret. No, it was the series of speeches that you gave at each Memorial
Day parade. In each of
those speeches, you talked about one person from Glen
Ridge who served and died in each
war: WW1, WW2, Korea and Vietnam,
and those speeches
really hit me. You
spoke about those servicemen is very real terms, what house they lived in,
what year they went to school, how old they were, who their family was, and
it’s very appropriate that, as we recognize and thank you for your
service to Glen Ridge, and as we recognize and thank everyone here tonight
for the service that they have given to our town, that we also recognize the
service that those servicemen have given to our Town and to our Country.
Volunteers make Glen Ridge
a special place; they preserve what we have and improve what they can. We cannot survive as
a Town, we will not survive as a Town, unless the citizens of this Town
continue in the tradition of Volunteerism as exemplified by our former Mayor
and get involved and volunteer to serve as Mayor or Councilperson, Member of
the Board of ED, or any of the various boards and committees that we have in
Town.
On behalf of the Borough, let me extend
our thanks for your years of service, Carl, and extend our best wishes to
you, your wife Ruby, and your son Andrew.
Nancy Everett from Congressman
Pascrell’s Office presents Mayor Bergmanson with a proclamation
Mayor Bergmanson was honored by local, state and
federal officials
Former Mayor Ed Callahan -
who was Mayor when Carl was first elected to the
Borough Council in 1990 - spoke of their work together, and of Carl’s
accomplishments as a Councilman and Mayor. He also presented letters from
President Bush and Governor Corzine honoring Carl. Nancy Everett,
representing Congressman Pascrell’s office, read a letter from the
Congressman applauding Mayor Bergmanson for his years of Public Service.
Glen Ridge Kiwanis Club President Lynne Oliver and
Former Mayor Carl Bergmanson
Presentation of a Commemorative Plaque
At the end of the evening, Mayor Bergmanson was presented with a plaque by Glen Ridge
Kiwanis President Lynne Oliver.
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