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| In Memoriam of State Senator Byron M. Baer October 18, 1929 - June 24, 2007 Byron Baer Remembered for Fighting the Good Fight Thursday, June
28, 2007 ENGLEWOOD -- Career lawmaker and activist Byron M. Baer was remembered Wednesday at a memorial that channeled the spirit of the 1960s. Between a selection of music that included protest songs and a bagpipe procession, Governor Corzine, state Senate President Richard Codey and hundreds of other mourners gathered at the Bergen Performing Arts Center to talk about a man who lived to solve the problems of others. Baer died on Sunday from complications of congestive heart failure. He was 77. Codey portrayed Baer as a person defined by his "inherent belief that any good idea is worth fighting for." Baer was a civil rights activist who marched with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s and spent 45 days in a Mississippi jail as a result. During his 34 years in the state Senate, he was a supporter of consumer protection and tenants' rights laws and a champion of open government through the passage of the Open Public Meetings Act in 1974. On Wednesday, Baer's son-in-law read part of the act out loud. The law, which was named for Baer last year, made it a right for citizens to be present at government meetings, and led other states to pass similar laws. "He was just tireless," said Mitch Kahn, an organizer for the New Jersey Tenants Organization. "He was the go-to guy in the state Legislature for any kind of progressive legislation." In Englewood, a core of activists, many of whom were in attendance Wednesday, remember him for his fight for school integration. When the trash wasn't picked up, he brought garbage to a City Council meeting and dumped it there. At the end of the service, his goddaughter, Mira Jones, sang a sweet, measured version of "We Shall Overcome." It was a fitting song, because Baer and other activists used to sing it at the end of meetings in the 1960s. "He was our watchdog in Trenton," said Cornelia Williams, outreach director for the Southeast Senior Center on Grand Avenue. "When I went to his office, he was never too busy to see me." His was eager to talk to anyone who might have a solution to a problem, said his stepson, Roger Politt. And once he decided to solve a problem, he didn't stop until there was a solution in sight. "He was not above being jailed or even injured for the things he believed in," Codey said. Despite his tenaciousness, Baer had a private, tender side. He liked to paint. He built his next-door neighbors' children a kite out of toothpicks. He had a loving relationship with his wife, Linda. Even from a hospital bed, he never forgot to tell his son David he was proud of him, his son said. "When he couldn't fight for grander causes, that was a cause, too," his son said.
Reproduced from
The Record
Paid for by Friends of Michael J. Wildes For Mayor, Assemblyman Arnold Brown, Treasurer 250 Allison Court, Englewood, NJ 07631 |
