Anthony Fasano selected as youngest ever director of Sussex County commissioners board

Anthony Fasano was sworn in as director of the Sussex County Board of County Commissioners on Wednesday, becoming perhaps the youngest person in the state ever elected to direct a county board.

Fasano, 27, is in his last year of a three-year term on the board, which was known as the Board of Chosen Freeholders when he took office on Jan. 1, 2020. State law changed the name to Board of County Commissioners, effective Jan. 1, 2021.

Officials with the New Jersey Association of Counties said there has not been anyone younger than Fasano as a county board director in at least 50 years. The association's records don't include ages for earlier years.

The name "freeholder" dates to colonial times when the governing bodies of the colony's counties consisted of those who owned property and were "free of debt," hence the shorthand term "freeholders."

As director, a position voted on by the board, Fasano presides at board meetings, represents the board at public functions and signs official documents on behalf of the county. The director, working with the county administrator, also sets the agenda for the board's business meetings.

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In his comments on Wednesday, Fasano said he remembered moving to Hopatcong just before he began kindergarten. He went on to become his senior year class president and at age 19, was elected to the borough's school board, later becoming its president.

He and fellow Hopatcong resident Sylvia Petillo ran as a team for the 2019 election.

This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: Sussex County NJ commissioners board selects Anthony Fasano