Township Committee Member Debra Shipps was elected mayor of Knowlton by her committee colleagues at Monday’s reorganization meeting.
Shipps served as mayor for 2024 and as deputy mayor before that. She said a top priority for 2026 will be keeping the power on throughout Knowlton, where blackouts occur frequently with no apparent reason at all, even under sunny skies with little to no wind.
While severe thunderstorms during recent summers have caused widespread outages here, along with the rest of the state, township officials have said JCP&L, the electric utility that serves most of Northwest Jersey, including Knowlton, bumps the town to the bottom of the list of repairs because fewer people are affected, with outages often lasting up to a week.
As mayor, Shipps hopes to change that.
“We really want to work with JCP&L and get that underway,” Shipps said.
Tunnel Field will continue to see improvements.
“So, we have a lot of great ideas for next year,” Shipps said. “We’ll continue to revitalize Tunnel Field and make it a place for everybody.”
Committeeman Matt Baley was elected deputy mayor.
Also sworn in to the committee were newcomer Ryan Lembeck and former committee member Adele Starrs, who left the committee in 2023 after serving nine years on the governing body, eight of them as mayor.
Joe brings decades of journalism experience to the Ridge View Echo, covering everything from local school boards to the U.S. Supreme Court. A former National Law Journal editor and Columbia Law School press officer, he now enjoys telling community stories in Blairstown, where he lives with his wife, Rose, and their two dachshunds.
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
