Village of Flower Hill Deputy Mayor Brian Herrington was appointed to the village’s vacant mayor’s seat to serve out the rest of late mayor Robert McNamara’s term at a May 4 board meeting.
Herrington served as McNamara’s deputy mayor during McNamara’s tenure in office, and the late mayor endorsed Herrington as his replacement when he announced he would not seek reelection to the village’s highest office. Herrington said that McNamara kept him thoroughly involved in village affairs the entire time he served as his deputy, making him well as well prepared to take the reins during this time as he could be.
“Bob and I really managed the village together,” Herrington said. “He really included me in a lot of the work and the projects that went on, in the management of the village. It’s difficult losing a friend and a mentor, but he believed in managing the village in a responsible way and that has led to me being able to step into this role to be able to manage seamlessly. We’re lucky he set it up that way.”
Still, the interim mayor also remarked that the village, while relatively well-off in a financial sense due to years of fiscal restraint, is facing a host of problems that make this a difficult time to steer through.
“It’s almost like a bad movie plot, but it is what it is,” Herrington said. “We’ve just been focused on protecting our residents. Hopefully within the next week or two we’ll be in a position to discuss how to begin reopening the economy.”
In Herrington’s first act as mayor, he appointed trustee Randall Rosenbaum to serve as his deputy.
Whether Herrington will remain mayor after village elections, which have been delayed until September, still has yet to be seen. The temporary executive is running to fill the top office in Flower Hill against fellow trustee Katie Hirsch, though he said the election is the furthest thing from his mind while the village navigates the pandemic.
