Nine-year member leaving Township Committee
By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
In his last meeting as a township committeeman, Bob Wagner saved his most endearing words for his son, Connor.
As a public official, there were many times over nine years he had to balance the demands of personal and public life, he said from the podium.
Connor was in second grade when Mr. Wagner first ran for office. Now Connor has a driver’s license, Mr. Wagner said.
Looking at his son in the audience, Mr. Wagner said he knew there were times that “I wasn’t there or came home late. I hope you saw the reasons why I did this. Thank you for allowing me to have that opportunity.”
Mr. Wagner had compliments for each of his governing body colleagues, township employees and emergency service workers and thanks to the public.
”It was an honor to have served, and I appreciate the trust to guide the township to a better direction than when I first came in,” he said Monday.
Mr. Wagner intended to run for a fourth three-year term, but he dropped off the Republican ticket in June when he took a state government job as Department of Labor regional call center manager in the unemployment and insurance area. State law forbids a state worker from participating in politics.
Mr. Wagner, 48, was known primarily for his leadership in the preservation of open space and for urging people to remember the contributions of veterans and those currently serving in the military.
Mr. Wagner said he was proud to have played a part in saving passive recreation space and viewsheds so future residents could have an idea of Hillsborough as a farming community.
Many of the preserved tracts are on the wooded Sourland Mountain, but the township has closed on a property off Mill Lane and South Branch Road a few weeks ago.
He is not a veteran, but veterans are extremely important “not just to Hillsborough, but to the country as a whole,” he said.
In his time on the Township Committee, he saw Memorial and Veterans Day ceremonies grow and prosper.
”We just can’t do enough to recognize men and women who are serving, have served and will serve,” he said. “They make sacrifice to be away from family, and some make ultimate sacrifice. We can’t pay enough gratitude.”
He was motivated to get involved politically when his sister, Kathy, who was on the Bedminster Township Committee, suggested he look into it.
A resident of Hillsborough since 1993, he said his first volunteer job was on the Recreation Commission to which he was first appointed two years before elected to the Township Committee.
Mayor Carl Suraci, who ran on the same ticket with Mr. Wagner three times, recalled meeting Mr. Wagner at a Republican Club screening more than nine years ago. They were appointed to the Recreation Commission together, he recalled. Mr. Wagner was alternate number one, and he was number two, he said.
His colleagues cited Mr. Wagner’s calm demeanor, noting some called Mr. Wagner “Mr. Nice” when he served as mayor except for one time, Mr. Suraci recalled.
That was when a developer got under Mr. Wagner’s skin, and Mr. Wagner told him “to get the (blank) out of town,’” Mr. Suraci said.
Stepping aside will be bittersweet.
He said Monday, “I guess it’s the closest I’ll come to retirement without actually retiring.”
In college, he was a hiker, he said. Maybe that’ll be an activity he’ll pick up again in his spare time perhaps even with Connor, he said.

