The Honorable James J. Kennedy
Mayor, City of Rahway

James J. Kennedy has called Rahway home for over four decades, is a graduate of Rahway High School and the owner of Kennedy Jewelers in Rahway. In 1978, he joined other city merchants to create the Rahway Chamber of Commerce, where he served as President from 1980 to 1982 and from 1988 to 1990.

Running as a Democrat in 1990, he was elected by the voters of Rahway to his first term as Mayor. Almost immediately, Kennedy moved to restore the city’s fiscal stability, completely overhauling municipal services and expenses. By reducing expenditures and working to increase revenues that were not dependent on property taxes, Rahway enjoyed one of New Jersey’s most stable property tax rates since 1991. Kennedy was reelected by wide margins in 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006.

In addition to stabilizing local property taxes, he has made investments in municipal infrastructure a priority of his administration. Since 1991, over four miles of sidewalk have been replaced, over 100 sections of street have been resurfaced or reconstructed and every city and county park in Rahway received a full rehabilitation. Rahway’s solid waste and recycling program was brought under direct municipal control in 1998, saving property taxpayers $1 million and giving city residents one of the most effective and efficient solid waste and recycling collection programs in the state at no additional charge. Privatizing the management of the city’s water utility has also brought in increased revenues while maintaining safe drinking water and keeping water rates among the lowest in the state.

Economic development has continued to be another hallmark of the Kennedy administration. Soon after his first election to office in 1990, he moved to create the Rahway Center Partnership to revitalize the city’s central business district. With the cooperation and support of local merchants and civic leaders, the city received a new $15 million NJ Transit train station in 1998 which was joined by an award-winning public plaza in 2001. An 11-acre parcel of land behind City Hall that had lay dormant for nearly three decades was developed in 1999 with the opening of the new Rahway Recreation Center, the first state-of-the-art recreation center in the city’s history and in 2004 with the opening of the city’s $15 million public library and office complex.

Merck and Company, which has maintained a presence in Rahway since the late 19th century and remains the city’s largest taxpayer and employer, has grown significantly under Kennedy’s leadership, adding 2,500 employees and 2 million square feet in office and research space to its Rahway campus since the early 1990s. In 2001, Kennedy brought Merck and Rahway’s public schools together to create the Dr. P. Roy Vagelos Scholarship, which provides scholarships to the nation’s most select colleges and universities for Rahway High School’s top academic students.

Kennedy presently is a commissioner on the Rahway Valley Sewerage Authority and the Union County Utilities Authority, chairing the UCUA from 1997 to 1999. He is also a former Union County Improvement Authority commissioner. He has served on the boards of the Rahway Kiwanis Club, the Rahway Senior Housing Corporation, the Rahway Geriatrics Center and the Rahway Foundation for Excellence in Education.

Kennedy and his wife, Lori, live in Rahway with their son, Sean.