East Orange Mayor Lester E. Taylor III was recently awarded an Outstanding Achievement Award at the 2017 City Livability Awards Program during The U.S. Conference of Mayors’ 85th Annual Meeting.
This year’s winning cities were selected by former mayors from a pool of more than 150 applicants. East Orange was recognized for its comprehensive “Don’t Dump on EO” Campaign, a collaborative community effort that engaged citizens of all ages in helping to keep East Orange clean and raise the standard of living in the city.
“In East Orange, we always say a clean city is a safe city, and a clean and safe city is a profitable city,” said Taylor. “When I took office in 2014, we established a Quality of Life Task Force to tackle the issues that commonly arise as a result of decades of blight. I am extremely proud of how much we have been able to accomplish in three years.”
Lester also highlighted the township’s Division of Vacant and Abandoned Properties, which is using half a billion dollars in private capital investment and 5,000 square feet of light industrial and commercial retail.
Located in Northern New Jersey in Essex county, East Orange has an estimated population of 64,789 and is the Garden State’s 20th most populous municipality. The township is almost 90 percent Black.