Editing Carlos Romero Barceló (section)

===Mayor===
Romero was one of the founding members of the New Progressive Party in 1967. The following year he was elected Mayor of [[San Juan, Puerto Rico]], succeeding the legendary "doña Fela" ([[Felisa Rincón de Gautier]]) and becoming the first popularly elected mayor of San Juan, since previous mayors were elected by the San Juan City Council, not directly by the electorate.  During his second term, in 1973, he became the first Hispanic to become vice-president of the [[National League of Cities]] and in 1974 became president of the organization. He served as mayor until 1976 when he defeated incumbent governor of Puerto Rico [[Rafael Hernández Colón]].  While [[Hernán Padilla]] was elected to succeed him, technically, his immediate successor was [[Carlos S. Quirós]], his Vice Mayor who became full mayor for over a week until Padilla's term began. Some of his notable accomplishments as mayor were the inclusion of San Juan into U.S. President [[Lyndon Johnson]]'s [[Model Cities Program]], which changed the face of the slum called [[Cataño, Puerto Rico#Name|"El Fanguito"]] to become the area of the "new" San Juan where modern facilities such as the San Juan Natatorium, the Puerto Rico Coliseum and numerous residential condominium projects were eventually built; the construction of the [[Roberto Clemente Coliseum]] and the first municipal educational institution of Puerto Rico: the Colegio Universitario de San Juan.