Mahwah Times

Just two years after being soundly rejected by Mahwah voters, George Ervin has been returned by a surprisingly strong second place finish to serve as one of seven Mahwah Council members.

Mahwah Council elections results are as follows, with the top three candidates being elected to serve as Mahwah Council members.

As a reminder, it was just two years ago that Mahwah voters threw George Ervin out with a dismal fifth place finish.

George Ervin first became Councilman upon the resignation of then-freeholder-elect Mary Amoroso in 2017, Ervin then faced election for Amoroso’s one-year unexpired term. There was a last minute revelation of George Ervin smiling for a photograph with the Confederate Flag just 8 days prior to the general election. see InsiderNJ article.

At the time, Councilman Ervin’s explanation to being photographed with ol’ Dixie was exceptionally weak. The councilman was quoted as saying the “flag,” is a “beach towel” that was found in the home that he rented, that the photo was more than 5 years old. He also appears to blame children and his deceased friend. Councilman Ervin was also quoted as saying “You pick something up, you don’t think of it. Now maybe I could say yeah in hindsight we probably shouldn’t have done that.”

George Ervin’s second place results are particularly surprising, so shortly after being thrown out of office, while the following questions have never been satisfactorily answered, even after more than 7 years:

(1) What difference is the symbolism in smiling to be photographed with the Confederate “beach towel” that is 100% covered in the Confederate “flag”?
(2) In George Ervin’s response, he correctly calls this a “confederate battle flag”. While it is true that Dixie never served as the official flag of the Confederate States, about 99.9% of American’s would simply call this the “Confederate Flag”. Why does George Ervin know the difference between the “Confederate flag” and the “Confederate battle flag”, yet not understand its deep association to systemic racism, lynching, slavery and white supremacy?