Mayor Patricia M. Kuran, Fanwood’s First Woman and First Democratic Mayor
During Women’s History Month throughout March, we are celebrating those women with Fanwood roots who are or have made a difference. This week we are recognizing Patricia M. Kuran who served as Fanwood’s first woman and first Democratic Mayor from 1983 to 1991. She previously was a Borough Councilwoman from 1978 to 1982. As Mayor, she initiated a drive to save the Carriage House. Early in 1999, the building was renamed The Patricia M. Kuran Cultural Arts Center in her honor. As a councilwoman, she was instrumental in saving the Carriage House from demolition when the Borough purchased the property to build its municipal building in 1975. Mayor Kuran was known as a champion of arts in the Borough. The Carriage House, the jewel of Fanwood’s historic district, today hosts the Fanwood Performance Series and the Carriage House Poetry Series.
She also led an effort that resulted in passage of state legislation in 1989 prohibiting developers from tearing down houses to create vacant land on which to build affordable housing. As a volunteer, she helped produce the Fanwood Environmental Commission’s first “Natural Resources Inventory,” published in 1976, and which is now called the “Environmental Resources Inventory.” Also during her tenure as mayor, the town acquired several acres of land in 1984 that became the Fanwood Nature Center.
Prior to joining the Council, Kuran ran unsuccessfully for the Scotch Plains-Fanwood Board of Education in 1976 and was a member of the Union County Environmental Health Advisory Committee for two years.
Mayor Kuran was the 1983 recipient of the William D. Mason Distinguished Service Award from the Fanwood-Scotch Plains Jaycees. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Rutgers University and was employed for 25 years as a librarian and teacher in the Plainfield Public Schools system, retiring in 1995. She passed away in 1996.