I am writing an open letter to the community today to formally announce the resignation of John O. Gross as Village Administrator. John has accepted a position as Finance Director/Chief Financial Officer for West Orange. He will continue to serve as part-time CFO for South Orange.

As John is remaining our CFO, we will continue to benefit from his fiscal intuition and institutional knowledge of the Village. The Board has been discussing this for the past several weeks in confidence and we have already formed a search committee to help find a new administrator. Serving on this search committee with me, in addition to our Village Attorney and Village Clerk, is Trustee and Chair of the Legal and Personnel Committee Deborah Davis-Ford, along with Trustees Howard Levison and Nancy Gould. The committee will assist in the process of finding a new administrator who will continue to lead South Orange in a managerially and fiscally sound direction.

John will begin transitioning to his new position beginning October 1. We wish him the best of luck and South Orange can not thank John enough for his years of service to help make the Village what it is today.

More information about the search and progress of the hiring process will be able to be found on southorange.org/admin.

Alex Torpey, Village President