Bordentown Township lost a dedicated public servant last month when Stephen Benowitz died on Feb. 10 at the age of 78.
Benowitz served as an elected member of the Bordentown Township Committee from 1979 to 1981 and from 2013 to 2023. He had been selected by his fellow committee members to serve as mayor every year from 2017 to 2023.
Benowitz had resigned from his role as mayor and committee member on Dec. 31, citing health concerns.
“The township has lost a remarkable man and a true giant of public service. Steve’s indelible legacy will forever be felt in Bordentown Township. On behalf of the Township Committee, I offer the most sincere condolences to Steve’s wife, Ellen Benowitz, and his entire family,” Bordentown Mayor Eugene M. Fuzy said in a Feb. 12 statement released by the township.
“There is so much to say about Steve’s love of public service, love of Bordentown, and love for everyone who worked for the betterment of the township. He will be truly missed,” Fuzy said.
Benowitz was born in Philadelphia in March 1945. He moved with his family to Roosevelt, a small community in Monmouth County, graduating from Hightstown High School.
His father, Bernard, was as a salesman and his mother, Frances, worked at Bamberger’s in the Princeton Shopping Center where McCaffrey’s is now. Benowitz himself worked part time in the menswear department.
Roosevelt’s population when he was a kid, he said, was around 750 people. Benowitz remembered seeing Eleanor Roosevelt speak when she attended a school dedication to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and he said the town was a haven for artists like Ben Shahn, who had a studio with a frog pond where Benowitz and his friends would play in grade school.
Benowitz went on the get an associate’s degree in liberal arts from Trenton Junior College, now Mercer County Community College. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history at Rider University and a master’s in special education from Trenton State College. Benowitz began his career teaching at the Yardville Youth Reception and Correction Center and then moved on to Rahway State Prison. But he wanted to get back into public education, and he ended up working as the director of special education at Burlington County Technical Schools for 30 years.
Benowitz and wife Ellen were married in 1967, and moved to Bordentown in 1969. They have two children — Frank and Jill — as well as three grandchildren (Rebecca, Francine and Maddie) and two great-grandchildren (Raymond and Jackson.)
Benowitz told the Current in 2017 that his reasons for running for office in 1978 were simple:
“I just wanted to give back to my community and do the right thing,” he said. “I had no vested interests whatsoever. I know people have a bad image of politicians. I can look people in the eyes and say, ‘I’ve never taken a dime in my life.’ It’s the same thing today.”
Benowitz told the Current that he decided to run again in 2012 after he attended every committee meeting that year and observed that commercial business was rarely discussed.
After he was elected again in that year, he immediately set out to market the township as an attractive development spot, hoping that more commercial business would help flatten out taxes.
Benowitz was mayor when the township passed an ordinance prohibiting recreational cannabis-related businesses to operate within its boundaries in 2021, as well as in 2022 when the township reversed that decision.
Curaleaf, which operated as a medical cannabis dispensary after opening in August 2021, began selling recreational marijuana in 2022, after the revision.
“We try to do what’s best for our community. We carefully consider all the different options, and we do what we feel is best for our community. That’s all I care about. It’s what we’re elected for,” Benowitz told the Current in 2022.
In a statement released Dec. 26 announcing his resignation, he said that to serve the people of Bordentown Township had been his “distinct honor and pleasure. It is with deep regret that my health has required an abrupt ending to this service.”
Benowitz expressed confidence that the township was in good hands. “The team we have created will continue to serve our constituents with the same level of commitment that makes me so very proud to be a resident of this great town. I greatly appreciate our residents, fellow township committee members and township staff to have been allowed this opportunity to lead our town for over a decade. I wish everyone health and happiness.”
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Eugene M. Fuzy succeeded Benowitz as mayor this year, after serving as his deputy mayor for five of the past seven years.
Fuzy told the Current that he had been serving on the environmental commission when Benowitz recruited him to run for a seat on the committee.
“Steve is going to be missed, that is for sure,” Fuzy said. “Steve always had the township and its residents in the front of his mind all the time.”
Fuzy also paid tribute to Benowitz in his Jan. 6 remarks upon taking up the mayor’s role.
“Steve Benowitz left some big shoes to fill and will be missed… He was very big on two sentiments about us as local officials and the public. He would say we are the bridges to government, and we need to give transparency. I believe in both.”
Fuzy rued at the time that the committee would be losing Benowitz’ deep historical knowledge of the township he had lived in for 55 years.
“Steve’s been in the town since the 60’s. He knows a lot of different factors through that time period, the different people you need to talk to, the historical impacts of all that has happened in the township during that time,” Fuzy said.
Michael Theokas, Bordentown Township’s business administrator, was hired on Benowitz’ watch.
“Mayor Benowitz was (until this year) the only mayor I worked for in the township, but I had the privilege of working for several mayors in my public career, and he was certainly one of the best if not the best that I’ve had the opportunity to work for,” Theokas said.
Theokas said Benowitz was “always available, always helpful and always extremely supportive. He was a really excellent mayor to work with — it was really collaborative, and that was the way he wanted it.”
Theokas hailed Benowitz as a dedicated public servant, not just as an elected official, but also from his time as a school administrator.
“All the things he would consistently say in public meetings, he truly meant,” Theokas said. “He really wanted to build a bridge between government and the public. He really enjoyed being out among the constituents and helping them solve problems. There is no question that the health and vitality in the township was his number one priority at all times.”
Theokas said Benowitz struck a good balance as mayor between seeing the big picture of today and understanding what the township’s needs were going to be in the future.
“Obviously, he was the mayor that was presiding over the committee that hired me, and has been mayor every year since, so I’m particularly thankful for all that he’s done for me personally and professionally,” Theokas said. “I count him as a friend, certainly as a mentor, and as somebody that, when it comes to serving the public, someone that I aspire to be. A great man, a great public servant, and I’m sure that when he gets healthy, he’s still going to be around, and we look forward to that.”
Sen. Troy Singleton and Assemblyman Herb Conaway presented a ceremonial resolution in honor of Benowitz at the Jan. 6 township committee meeting, at which Fuzy and Aneka Miller were sworn in as mayor and deputy mayor.
Singleton posted a tribute to Benowitz on Facebook: “I was extremely saddened to learn of the passing of former Bordentown Township Mayor Steve Benowitz. He leaves behind a legacy of public service, as he was an upstanding leader for this community for years. I consider myself privileged to have had his counsel and friendship during my time in the Legislature. My deepest sympathies to his family, staff, and friends,” he wrote.
Kelly Lozito was selected by the township committee to take Benowitz’ place on the committee. Lozito got to know Benowitz as a member of the township’s environmental commission.
“The one thing everyone knew about Steve is that he was very, very dedicated to the success of the town and making sure of the town was supported and people were supported,” Lozito told the Current. “His dedication to Bordentown was amazing.”
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A new Steve Benowitz Memorial Scholarship Fund has been established in Benowitz’ memory. Donations to the fund can be sent to the “Steve Benowitz Memorial Scholarship Fund.” Checks should be made payable to Bordentown Township Senior Citizens Club and mailed to care of Dorothy Sherman, 13 Linden Road, Bordentown, NJ 08505-1507. (Memo on check: Memory of Steve of Benowitz.)
Steve Benowitz, 2017.,
