‘It’s our history’

Planning is underway to add the two portraits missing from the Middlesex Borough municipal courtroom’s Wall of Mayors.

One will portray John Madden, a mayor who concluded an honorable four-year term at year-end 2023.

The other will depict Ron DiMura, a chief executive whose term was cut short by several weeks after a 2019 indictment for financial misdeeds.

In a move that could prove controversial with some borough residents, the intent is to hang DiMura’s picture – as well as Madden’s – on the courtroom back wall at some point later this year.

Mayor Jack Mikołajczyk announced the plans at the Borough Council’s Tuesday, June 11 meeting. The mayor was responding to a question from Inside – Middlesex as to when Madden’s portrait would be placed on the Wall of Mayors.

Mikolajczyk responded that the aim is to hang portraits of both mayors currently missing from the wall.

The gallery has framed photos of all other mayors in Middlesex Borough’s history, dating back to its formation in 1913.

Mikolajczyk and other current officials are taking the position that the Wall of Mayors is a historical record, and all who held that office should be depicted there for accuracy.

“My feeling is, he was a mayor, it goes up on the wall,” Mikolajczyk said in reference to DiMura’s portrait.

“It’s our history,” Mikolajczyk added.

DiMura was indicted by the state Attorney General in December 2019 on charges he laundered campaign money through a charitable scholarship fund and bilked private investors in a Ponzi scheme. The indictment came roughly a month after Madden had defeated him in the general election.

After DiMura pleaded guilty to some charges, he was sentenced to seven years in prison by a state Superior Court judge in February 2021. He was paroled in October 2022 after serving less than two years.

The borough is working to get a “proper picture” of DiMura, according to Mikolajczyk. 

Another issue that has slowed the portrait hanging is finding frames that match the ones used previously on the Wall of Mayors. 

“The issue internally is really more about the frames than the pictures,” said Borough Administrator Michael LaPlace. “We weren’t able to match the older frames.”

Mikolajczyk said there would likely be a ceremony to note the new portrait hangings. Asked who might be invited to represent DiMura, Mikolajczyk said only, “We’ll do the right thing.”

When contacted on Tuesday, June 12, Madden said he has no problem with DiMura’s potrait being hung alongside his own. But he believes the mayoral wall should include one- or two-line biographies of each person who held that office in Middlesex.

If that were done, Madden said, it would spotlight DiMura’s legal troubles, as well as the fact he was a past mayor.

Madden said he’s “thought long and hard” about the situation and researched how other towns have noted mayors who had “a compromising past.”

“If that one line includes something about what happened with him, I think that would be historically accurate for future generations,” Madden said.

“My predecessor deserves no accolades, obviously,” Madden added.

Madden also favors moving the mayoral display out of the courtroom, perhaps into a hallway showcase where it would be more accessible to visitors.

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