Surf City Council President Elected Mayor, Len Connors To Step Down After Nearly 50 Years

Call it the end of a very long era.

Surf City Mayor Leonard T. Connors Jr. was first elected when Lyndon B. Johnson was president.

In January, Connors will step down after almost 50 years as mayor of the small oceanfront town on Long Beach island.

He will be replaced by Council President Francis R. Hodgson, who ran unopposed in the general election for the mayoral term. Hodgson is no slouch in the public service department. He has been council president for more than four decades.

Connors was first elected in 1966. He also served as an Ocean County Freeholder from 1977 to 1982 and as a New Jersey State Senator in Ocean County’s Ninth District.