James J. Tedesco, III, a former Mayor of Paramus, has been serving his first term as Bergen County Executive since January 1, 2015. As County Executive, Tedesco has focused on improving services to county residents while also creating greater efficiency and effectiveness throughout county government. Top priorities in his first two years in office have included: realigning the County Police as a unit within the County Sheriff’s Office, creating responsible oversight and a secure future for Bergen Regional Medical Center (New Jersey’s largest hospital and the fourth largest publicly-owned hospital in the nation), increasing services and support for U.S. military veterans and their families, identifying opportunities to share services with and between Bergen County municipalities, and preserving and enhancing the nearly 10,000 acres of open space and recreational facilities within our Bergen County Parks System.

 

Following the example set by his father, Tedesco has always been committed to public service. In 1976, Tedesco joined the Paramus Fire Department, where he has been a volunteer firefighter for more than 40 years and elected Fire Chief twice. Starting in 2000, Tedesco served on the Paramus Borough Council and then as Mayor of his hometown for two terms. His service also extended to holding several community volunteer leadership positions with emergency management, youth sports, and non-profits.

 

Tedesco discussed the new relationship with New Bridge Medical Center and how it is a great partnership for the everyone involved. This is a great location to help area Veterans that used to have to go all the way to East Orange for care. This lead to many not taking advantage of their benefits. This location also has 1 of 7 specialized Mammography units that went unused for years. Now it can be put to good use! A partnership has been established with Rutgers University where there will be 18 Doctors working at this location and over the next 3 years that number will increase to 50! New Bridge Medical Center is not a place that wants to compete with area hospitals but they want to be able to give services to people who previously has no access. 

 

Bergen County has been able to achieve and keep a AAA bond rating. This gives Bergen County a lot of power for exciting new projects and opportunities in the future, one of them being the Light Rail! The Light Rail is an exciting new project that is being worked on in order to alleviate some of the traffic congestion just like it has done for Hudson County. One other exciting project coming to the area is widening Route 17! Maywood has now agreed that something much be done in order to alleviate the traffic on Route 17. All that is left is getting Rochelle Park on board and the widening of Route 17 will soon be underway.