Howell Ex Mayor, Longtime Resident Honored By Township Council

HOWELL, NJ - The Howell Township Council honored a late former member during a Feb. 9 virtual meeting. Sue Veitengruber, who once served as a council member and the municipality’s second-ever female mayor, passed at the age of 71 on Jan. 20 due to COVID-19.

Mayor Theresa Berger, who read the proclamation aloud, noted that Veitengruber “was an avid leader and volunteer who cared deeply for her community.”

Veitengruber served on the Howell Township Council in the 1990s and was mayor in 1991. She was preceded by Howell's first female mayor, Phyllis Kavett, who took office in 1979.

Veitengruber was also a member of the Howell school board for eight years and a member of the PTA, volunteered on numerous township boards and committees, and cooked hundreds of Thanksgiving turkeys for the PBA to deliver to homebound seniors, Berger said.

Before her extensive work in Howell, she served as a municipal administrator in Keansburg, the acting administrator in South Bound Brook and the chief financial officer in North Brunswick, Tabernacle Township and Shrewsbury.

She was also professor at Rutgers University teaching municipal finance courses, a supporter of the Howell Education Foundation and served on various town boards including the Howell Township Transportation Committee, Planning Board, Environmental Commission and Ordinance Review committees.

The former official also served as chairwoman of both the Howell Township Rent Control Board and the Finance Review Committee as well as the Secretary of the Monmouth County Board of Drug and Alcohol Abuse Services and Vice-Chairwoman of the Monmouth County Commission on the Status of Women.

"I enjoy volunteering and helping the community in Howell. Volunteerism is the engine that moves the Township forward," she is quoted as saying in a 2015 Howell Chamber of Commerce newsletter. Related: COVID-19 Claims Howell's Former Mayor, Sue Veitengruber

Berger called Veitengruber a "pillar of our community" and "avid community volunteer and leader" in a Facebook post last month announcing the former official's passing.

“Those who were lucky enough to know Sue knew she was a strong and intelligent woman with boundless energy who adored her family above all else,” Berger said at the Feb. 9 meeting.

“I want to say for myself - and I believe the entire governing body, and for previous governing bodies - thank you to the Veitengruber family for sharing Sue with us, and for her extensive work in women’s services, which is tremendous.”