Jane Williams-Warren (born 1947) served as the second female African-American mayor of Paterson, New Jersey (2017–2018).
Jane Williams-Warren | |
|---|---|
| Mayor of Paterson, New Jersey | |
| In office October 10, 2017 – July 1, 2018 | |
| Preceded by | Ruby Cotton (interim mayor) |
| Succeeded by | Andre Sayegh |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1947 (age 76–77) |
Biography
Williams-Warren was born in 1947[1] in Paterson where she was also raised.[2] She attended Eastside High School.[3]
She started working for the city of Paterson in 1966.[4] She served as City Clerk of Paterson for 24 years and retired in 2014.[4][2] She was the first African-American to serve as the president of the Municipal Clerks’ Association of New Jersey.[2] On September 29, 2017, after being coaxed out of retirement, she was appointed mayor of Paterson by the City Council in a 5-4 vote[2][5] to replace interim mayor and City Council president Ruby Cotton who had replaced former mayor Jose “Joey” Torres after his conviction for corruption.[1] Williams-Warren was seen as a politically neutral choice compared to Cotton, Paterson's first African-American female mayor, who had succeeded to mayor by virtue of being council president.[1] She was sworn in on October 10, 2017.[5] She agreed to serve as mayor until the next mayor was sworn in after the general election in May 2018.[2] While mayor, she deferred her $97,500 state pension while she collected her $119,000 salary.[1][2]
On July 1, 2018, after the general election, she was succeeded by Andre Sayegh, Paterson's first Arab-American mayor.[1][6]