In 1973, an 18-year-old served on the Englewood City Council

Likely to be the youngest councilman in New Jersey history was Walter Nealy, who was 18-years-old when he was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Englewood City Council.

The Fourth Ward seat opened up on New Year’s Eve 1972 after 59-year-old incumbent Vincente Tibbs died of an embolism one-day undergoing prostate surgery.

Democrats had a 3-2 majority on the city council and, to protect their control, decided to appoint Nealy, a 1972 graduate of Dwight Morrow High School — had worked as a summer intern in the city’s urban renewal projects office —  and a freshman at Ramapo College, to serve on an interim basis until party leaders could agree on a replacement.  He was appointed at a scheduled council reorganization meeting on January 4 and had agreed to resign as soon as Democrats figured out whom they wanted in Tibbs’ seat.

Democrats designated Jack Drakeford to fill the vacancy; Nealy served about a month in 1973 while Drakeford arranged to take a leave of absence as an Englewood firefighter.

While Neely later served on the Englewood planning and health boards after law school, he never held public office again.   Drakeford left the council to become city clerk in 1977, later served as city manager, and returned to the council in 1999.  He served until he died in 2012.

Tibbs had been a legendary figure in Englewood politics.  He was elected to the city council by a 52%-35% margin in 1961, becoming the only Democrat during a time of racial tension in the city.   He also became the only Black elected official in Bergen County.  (Tibbs succeeded John T. Wright, who became the first Black local officeholder when he won the Fourth Ward seat in 1952.)

In 2019, 18-year-old Nick Pawylzyn Jr. was a high school senior when he won a seat on the New Hanover Board of Education.  No one had filed for a one-year unexpired term, and with 204 votes, Pawylzyn defeated another write-in candidate by one vote.  He was re-elected in 2020 but left the school board in 2021.

Michael L. Collins, now a partner at a politically influential law firm, King, Moench, and Collins, was elected to the Holmdel Board of Education in 2008 at age 18.  He was the top vote-getter in a field of four candidates for three seats.

Voters in Hamilton Township elected eighteen-year-old Christopher F. Scales to a school board seat in 2014; he had graduated from Steinert High School several months earlier and was a freshman at Rider University when he won his election.  Scales finished third in a seven-candidate field for three seats, topping Vincent McKelvey by 958 votes.  He did not seek re-election in 2017and instead went to law school.

After the ratification of the 26th Amendment, the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18, starting with the 1972 election.

Editor’s note: Readers who know of other local officials who took office at age 18 should contact [email protected].