Arthur J. Holland; Former Mayor of Trenton, N.J.

Arthur J. Holland, mayor of Trenton, N.J. for nearly three decades and recent president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, died Thursday of cancer in a Trenton hospital. He was 71.

Shortly after Holland ended his term as president of the conference in June, the nationwide group gave him its highest honor, the Distinguished Public Service Award. Previous recipients included Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.

Holland had announced last June that, because of inoperable lung and liver cancer, he would not seek reelection but would remain in office as long as physically possible. His term ends next June.

After beginning his public service career in Trenton’s Department of Public Affairs in 1951, Holland was first elected mayor in 1959, when the city still had a commission form of government. He had served continuously since then, except for four years after he failed to win reelection in 1966.

In his four years out of office, Holland served as adjunct research professor in the Urban Studies Center at Rutgers University, acting city manager of nearby Passaic, N.J., and consultant to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Brookings Institution and the National Institute of Public Affairs.

In 1984, the versatile mayor wrote a children’s book, “The Adventures of Bernie Bean,” about a happy Mexican jumping bean who travels from Manhattan to Paris and then winds up living in New Jersey.

A respected national spokesman for the urban poor, Holland enjoyed talking with inner-city children. To demonstrate his commitment to civil rights, in 1964 the mayor moved his family into a racially mixed neighborhood.

When President Bush took office last January, Holland optimistically sought $6 billion for U.S. cities through Urban Development Action Grants, law enforcement assistance, money for the homeless, clean-water construction grants, and funding for child care and youth education programs.

“To be a mayor,” he explained of his wish list, “is to live in hope.”

Holland was born Oct. 24, 1918, in Trenton and earned his bachelor’s degree in social studies and a master’s degree in public administration from Rutgers.

A Roman Catholic, he spent six years at a seminary, but did not enter the priesthood.

In 1962, during his first term as mayor, Holland married Elizabeth Anne Jackson, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress last year against Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.).

He is survived by his wife and their three sons and two daughters.