Trailblazing mayor says focus on Belleville’s issues key to victory

The township of Belleville has a new mayor, and he’s a trailblazer in many ways. Frank Velez is the first Latino elected to serve that position, and at just 24 years old, he’s the youngest. Despite his youth, Velez brings years of political experience to the office: At 19 he was the youngest person elected to the Belleville Board of Education, and then, at 22, the youngest councilman. You could call his political career a trifecta of “youngest” roles.

“It has definitely been a journey for me. I’ve always been really interested in politics and it’s always been something that has been important to my family,” Velez said. “I have a younger sister with special needs, so that’s always been a big factor for anything that I do in public service. Everybody deserves a seat at the table and that’s really what motivates me every single day.”

Velez ran on a platform of increasing affordability, strengthening schools and stopping overdevelopment. His “issue-driven campaign,” he said, is what resonated with voters, with a future-focused agenda rather than an emphasis on the past. He won by a landslide on May 12 against incumbent Michael Melham, who faced criticism over his handling of a four-day warehouse fire that led to the closing of schools for several days.

“My vision — our vision as a team — is about getting back to the basics, you know, getting back to the quality of life, the streets, the sidewalks, the development and making it work for the people here in this town. And doing everything we can to help our schools,” said Velez, who grew up in the township of roughly 38,000 people located about 12 miles west of Manhattan. “These are the things that people feel every single day, and this is what really impacts the community.”

Velez says he was shaped as a politician when he worked for the late Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. “He really taught me the importance of retail politics, right? Of being there, being accessible, never turning someone away and always being a man of the people,” Velez said. “He always fondly said one of the best jobs he ever held in his life was mayor of Paterson. And I think I’m really going to follow suit in the lessons that he taught me.”