By Birgitta Wolfe, managing Editor
BORDENTOWN TOWNSHIP A self-confessed political junkie, the newest member of the Township Committee is the panel’s only Democrat and probably the only trained chef at the table.
Jill Popko, of Henry Marshall Drive, was sworn in to office Sept. 12, replacing Democrat Jason Medina who resigned in July to move to Ohio.
”I have a great deal of respect for the people on the committee now. They care for the community. I have to tip my hat to them.
”Being a new person on the committee, I can bring a different perspective, in a respectful manner,” she said of the group, which has had its disagreements. “As a mother of two daughters, I know there can be discord and maybe I can bring it down a notch or two.”
Ms. Popko and her husband, Bill, a former member of the township Planning Board, have two daughters, Livia, 20, a junior at the College of New Jersey, majoring in international relations, and Thea, 16, a junior at Bordentown Regional High School.
”I want to set an example for them that you should be civic minded and be able to work with people,” she said.
The Popko family has added an additional member this year in the person of Michelle Piorek, a German foreign exchange student who is now attending Bordentown Regional High.
”I had to fill that empty nest,” Ms. Popko said.
Michelle came to them through the Youth for Understanding program and will be staying until June.
In the meantime, the family is showing its guests the sights, Philadelphia, New York and in mid-November, after the election when Ms. Popko plans to run for a full term on the Township Committee, a trip to Washington, D.C.
One of Ms. Popko’s interests as she serves out her current term until the end of the year is helping the area’s vulnerable senior citizens, a topic with which she is personally familiar.
A 1984 graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., she worked in the restaurant and catering business for 12 years before quitting to care for her elderly parents who both suffer from dementia.
She hopes to establish a group of volunteers that would check in with a list of seniors periodically, especially in emergency situations such as the recent hurricane. The group would determine if their electricity went out, basements flooded and what kind of help they need.
”Some of these senior have memory loss and some just fall between the cracks,” she said.
Another interest is the environment, especially supporting local farmers and the use of local produce, a carryover from culinary school.
While she assumes she will be picking up Mr. Medina’s committee assignments, which include liaison to the school board, the LaSalle University graduate said she would like to serve on the Environmental and Economic Development committees.
Before she moved from New Brunswick eight years ago, she served on the board of the Greater Brunswick Charter School.
Today, in her spare time, she is reading “Introducing Keynsian Economics” by Peter Puth, is an avid gardener and volunteers at the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.
