Billie Moore, Hopewell Township
To the editor:
In January of this year, Harvey Lester orchestrated a shameful scheme to deny Hopewell citizens the leadership they overwhelmingly voted for last year. Now he asks for our votes to continue this travesty.
As background, Hopewell citizens should understand that although we vote for individual Township Committee members (there are five, with staggered 3-year terms), the party that maintains majority of the Committee controls the selection of mayor, the composition of essential governing boards (e.g., Planning Board), and the agendas for Township Committee meetings, etc.
In last year’s Township Committee election, two Democratic candidates (incumbent Vanessa Sandom and Kevin Kuchinski) soundly defeated two Republican candidates as Hopewell voters clearly expressed their preference for continued Democratic leadership of the committee.
Harvey Lester, however, who at that time was a sitting Democrat on the committee, had other self-serving plans. In what I believe is a first-ever occurrence in Hopewell Township, Lester aligned himself with the Republicans so that he could nominate himself for mayor and receive the votes of the two Republican Township Committee members. After that, he switched to being a Republican, completely disregarding those who voted for him as a Democrat in 2012.
Now, almost a year later, what has Mr. Lester’s “leadership” brought us? A complete lack of progress on many critical issues.
Mayor Lester seems to have formally adopted “kicking the can down the road” and “putting his head in the sand” as his fundamental “leadership” tenets. His sole goal this year seems to have been to do nothing controversial so that he could maximize his chance to be reelected, and then be mayor again in 2016.
He has not led on major, critical issues:
– Reducing spending so as to reduce taxes. Our taxes went up more than 5 percent, highest increase in the county.
– Thinking and planning about how the township should address the extremely serious court-mandated affordable housing issue. Lester passed this off to the Planning Board, when the Township Committee should have been setting the strategy.
— Putting all the township’s legal might against the PennEast pipeline from early on. He wasn’t even on board against PennEast till recently, when he knew he had to oppose the pipeline. He voted for a resolution opposing Penn East when he was a Democrat in 2014, but it was the then-mayor, Vanessa Sandom, who created and pushed for the resolution. But leading on Penn East? Just not so.
There is a far better alternative to Harvey Lester, however: Julie Blake. Ms. Blake will bring professional listening, mediating and conciliation skills; open mindedness; and a willingness to work with others who might not agree with her to the job of Township Committeeperson if elected. She wants to keep Hopewell Township both beautiful and affordable.
Please join me in voting for Julie Blake on Nov. 3rd.
Billie Moore
Hopewell Township
