Patricia Q. Sheehan, the mayor of New Brunswick from 1967 to 1974 and a member of Gov. Brendan Byrne’s cabinet, died on November 17. She was 91.
The only woman to serve as New Brunswick mayor, Sheehan served as Commissioner of Community Affairs from 1974 to 1978, during Byrne’s first term as governor. Giants Stadium and the Meadowlands Racetrack opened during her time at DCA.
In 1967, she led a “New Five” reform group that toppled Mayor Chester W. Paulus, took control of the city government, and became the new mayor. Paulus had served as a city commissioner for 27 years, sixteen of them as mayor.
In a field of seventeen candidates, Sheehan finished first with about 6,150 votes. All five of her running mates – Carl Valenti (whose wife later served as a city councilwoman and Middlesex County freeholder), John A. Smith, Aldrage Cooper, and William A. Cahill – all won. She was just the second woman to seek public office in New Brunswick.
Sheehan became the first directly elected mayor of New Brunswick in 1970 after backing a change in the form of government. She defeated City Planning Director Vincent Cassera by a 2-1 margin, with David Harris, the city’s first Black mayoral candidate, running a distant third. Sheehan won 22 of 29 voting districts in New Brunswick.
The general election was closer, with Sheehan edging out independent Ralph Muehlig by about 525 votes, with about 52.6%. Still, her full slate of city council candidates prevailed.
She had been a political ally of State Sen. John A. Lynch, Sr., a former New Brunswick mayor. (His son, John A. Lynch, Jr., served three terms as mayor and in the State Senate from 1982 to 2002. Both served as Senate President.)
Sheehan resigned as mayor in 1974 when Byrne picked her for the cabinet post. She had also been considered for director of the Division of Consumer Affairs, a high-profile post in that era, to replace Millicent Fenwick. The other finalist for the Community Affairs post was Daniel Gaby, an advertising executive who had lost a Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in 1972.
As community affairs commissioner, she chaired the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission, the Housing Finance Agency, and served on the Capitol Planning Commission and the Sports and Exposition Authority.
In 1978, Byrne named Sheehan as the executive director of the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission.
In her later years, Sheehan served as the Avon Democratic municipal chair. In the 1980s, she became the first woman to chair the St. Peter’s College Board of Trustees. She had worked at Johnson & Johnson before her election as mayor, and returned to the company as a government affairs executive after the Byrne administration had ended.
The daughter of Irish immigrants, Sheehan was a graduate of Trinity College. She had volunteered on John F. Kennedy’s 1960 presidential campaign and for Richard J. Hughes in his successful race for governor of New Jersey in 1961.
Sheehan was widowed in December 1961 when her husband, New Brunswick City Commissioner Daniel Sheehan, died suddenly at age 30 after developing Encephalitis after catching a common cold. He had three young children, ages 3, 2, and 11 months.
She is survived by her daughter and son, her grandchildren, and a great-granddaughter. Her son, Daniel Sheehan, Jr., died in 2006.
Visitation will be held on November 21 from 4-7 PM at Crabiel Parkwest Funeral Chapel in New Brunswick. A Funeral Mass will be held at St. Peter the Apostle Parish in New Brunswick on November 22 at 10 AM. Interment will follow at St. Peter Cemetery in New Brunswick.
