Michael Mehr, who worked as a lawyer for the Federal Trade Commission during John F. Kennedy’s administration and later as a deputy attorney general of New Jersey, chief counsel to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, and as an Administrative Law Judge, died on November 14. He was 78. Mehr had been a senior partner at Waters, McPherson, McNeill.
Louis Costanza, a press aide to the New Jersey delegates committed to Eugene McCarthy at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, died on November 14. He was 86. Costanza is a U.S. Army veteran and served in the New Jersey National Guard. He later served as marketing director for K. Hovnanian Companies.
Mark Kupperman, a Star-Ledger reporter who covered local news in the late 1960s, died on June 13 after a battle with leukemia. He was 79. Kupperman grew up in Maplewood, published an underground newspaper during the end of the Vietnam War, spent nights living at the Port Authority bus terminal during a period of homelessness, and later became a public relations executive. He was elected to serve as a magistrate judge in Essex, New York, in the Adirondacks in 2001 and was re-elected twice before returning to New Jersey to be near his daughter.
Elizabeth Urquhart, who served as a Plainfield city councilwoman for sixteen years, died on November 9. She was 92. Urquhart was a former council president; Gov. James E. McGreevey named her to the Union County Board of Taxation in 2003.
Faith Walker, the mayor of Midland Park from 1988 to 1995, died on November 10. She was 85.
Christopher Englese, who had worked in the Jersey City Mayor’s communications office, died on November 13. He was 44.
Kevin Regan, a former Reuters reporter, died on November 1. He was 59.
Mary Burne, the first woman to serve on the Wall planning and zoning board, died on November 11. She was 90. Burne served as a commissioner of the South Monmouth Regional Sewerage Authority.
Gerald Barton, a former Westfield Planning Board member, died on November 20. He was 84.