Frank Druetzler entered Morris County politics with rhetoric worthy of Che Guevara.

“The liberation of Morris County has begun,” he said one April day in 1991 when launching his candidacy for freeholder.

This was not your usual Republican rallying cry, but these were not usual times for the Morris GOP.  A bloc of four freeholders aligned with former Sheriff John M. Fox, who was then the county’s most powerful politician, controlled the freeholder board to the dismay of many others in the party.

Druetzler and his two running mates tapped that sentiment, won the primary, and later the general election.

Druetzler soon settled into his county job and combined with being mayor of Morris Plains has remained in office for 38 years, or as he puts it, “half my life.” That long run of public service will come to an end this year. When this week’s filing deadline came about, Druetzler said he would not seek reelection as mayor; he had left the freeholder board at the end of 2006.

The veteran office holder will leave with the respect of just about all he encountered. And he also leaves Morris Plains with a slogan, “the Community of Caring,” that he made famous.

“When a town has a slogan, it’s something people rally around,” he says. Druetzler did not create the slogan – a fourth-grader did as part of a school project – but the mayor and freeholder brought it up just about any time someone mentioned Morris Plains, which means he mentioned it a lot.

As a freeholder, Druetzler gave himself the moniker, “Number Seven.”

There are seven freeholders, so the idea was to suggest that Druetzler was some sort of obscure back-bencher with limited influence.

This was self-deprecating humor at its best, Druetzler emerged over the years as perhaps the most knowledgeable freeholder. He knew history and he also knew there was no reason to humiliate or punish your adversaries. He was very much a gentleman.

It’s a truism that county government doesn’t always have a lot to do.

But there are exceptions.

Early in his freeholder tenure, Druetzler became the board’s garbage expert or “trashmeister.” It seems odd today, but 25 years ago, garbage disposal was big news in New Jersey – and a big problem.

Counties at the time were tasked with building individual incinerators or landfills. This was not easy.  After all, who wants a trash plant in their town?  Freeholder meetings with residents angry about a proposed incinerator or landfill in their town became common.

Druetzler did his best to oversee the county’s efforts and the freeholders eventually acquired two transfer stations – places where trash is dumped, placed on larger trucks, and shipped elsewhere. In this case, “elsewhere,” was Pennsylvania, an ingenuous solution that survives to this day.

For the most part, Druetzler was not seriously challenged at the polls, but there were exceptions to that as well.

In 1994, Druetzler encountered a political neophyte from Mendham Township named Chris Christie.

Christie introduced himself in the 1994 primary campaign with a cable TV ad suggesting Druetzler and his companions were under investigation by the prosecutor’s office. This morphed into the first of three suits Christie was involved in as a county freeholder.

The litigation was discussed frequently as Christie’s political career evolved, but many forget Druetzler was an original plaintiff. He dropped out of the litigation after he was one of the primary winners, the controversial ad notwithstanding.

“I was going to be on the same ticket with Chris (in the fall), so how could I be suing him?” he explained.

Relations between the two improved greatly over the years, although there were still bumps in the road.

Druetzler was one of three dissenters in a Christie-inspired vote to remove the architect who the county had hired to design a new jail.

This fracas and its aftermath indirectly led to the other two lawsuits that involved the former governor during his freeholder days.

Years later with Christie now in the Statehouse, his administration’s support for retaining New Jersey businesses turned out to be a big help to Morris Plains, or, if you prefer, the Community of Caring.

Honeywell Inc. was about to leave the state, but the Christie administration intervened and convinced the aerospace and engineering giant to stay. After plans for the company to expand in Morris Township fizzled, Honeywell relocated to Morris Plains.

“Thank God for Honeywell,” Druetzler said as we met for lunch this week at Arthur’s Tavern, a popular Morris Plains steakhouse.

He noted that Arthur’s and all other businesses in the small borough get a big boost from the estimated 1,000 Honeywell employees in town every work day.

The mayor admitted that leaving public life, which he thought about for a year, is not going to be easy. He said he knows that he will miss it “big time.”

He said he will remain living in Morris Plains, noting that even when he was a freeholder, he never wanted to get too far away from the borough. He said that is why he rejected encouragement over the years that he run for the state Legislature.

Druetzler is an avid sports fan who once had a season box at Shea Stadium.

It was a great place to visit, given the fact Druetzler was always happy to see Morris County people. His seats were also among the best in the house – the first row of the Loge section just to the right of home plate.

Druetzler, who gave up his tickets after the Mets moved to Citi Field, caught a foul boy at a rather memorable Met game – Game 7 of the 1986 World Series. That ball used to be displayed in his freeholder office.

Now that he’s about to retire, he’ll have a chance to catch some more foul balls.