
Morristown’s worst-kept secret is now official: Pastry chef Andrea Lekberg believes she has the recipe to defeat four-term Mayor Tim Dougherty.
In a social media post on the eve of Martin Luther King Day, the owner of The Artist Baker café ended months of local speculation by announcing her intention to run for mayor as an Independent in November.

“I’ve been working towards this for a long time now with a clear objective of serving the community that has done so much for me,” Lekberg, 59, said in a short video that promised a campaign website and platform soon.
Term limits and development will be key issues, she told Morristown Green.
“When you have somebody in office for a long time, I feel like things get lopsided,” said Lekberg, who was appointed by Dougherty to the planning board in 2022.
She added she often thinks about the needs of young families moving to town, and “just trying to balance that with development. And, you know, having the town be for the people who live here, and build on that.”

“Everyone has the right to run,” Dougherty, 66, said on Wednesday.
Lekberg said the mayor was cordial and shook her hand at Monday’s MLK Day Interfaith Breakfast.
While Dougherty’s formal announcement is imminent, he filed months ago to seek a fifth term, running with his “Morristown First” slate of Democratic council incumbents Nathan Umbriac, David Silva and Toshiba Foster.
Republican Andrew DeLaney has declared his council candidacy. Councilman Steve Pylypchuk, a Democrat representing Morristown’s Third Ward, is running for a state Assembly seat in District 25.

A seasoned campaigner and prodigious fundraiser, Dougherty has walloped primary challengers and cruised to four mayoral victories in the solidly Democratic seat of Morris County.
Two Independents (Rebecca Feldman and Robert Iannaccone) and two Republicans (Iannaccone and Alison Deeb) have won council seats during Dougherty’s tenure.
A frequent observer at town council meetings over the last year, Lekberg privately has quizzed numerous local movers and shakers — while declining to go public about her plans.

“Just say I’m working towards a run for public office,” she told Morristown Green last July.
Raised in Chicago, Lekberg trained as an artist at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Then she turned her attention to the culinary arts at the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago.
Lekberg moved to Morristown from South Carolina in 2007 and opened her café on Cattano Avenue a year later.

She moonlighted in the pastry kitchen at the former Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen in its heyday, and has supported area nonprofits by donating her baked confections at catered events.
Inspired by Mexican sisters who worked in her café, she has organized Morristown celebrations of the Dia de los Muertos holiday.
In 2022, Lekberg was cited by Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-11th Dist.) in her Heroes program for making a difference during COVID.
A citizen of the Lakota Sioux Nation through her maternal line, Lekberg made a somber quilt that is buried near the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre.
This story has been updated with the mayor’s comments.
Without term limits there’s often a lack of new ideas and creative thinking. Morristown is ready for term limits.