Reader Submitted
To the editor:
I have experienced firsthand what it feels like to have no support from my local representatives. More than anything, I want my vote in this election to help ensure that other residents of Hillsborough don’t ever experience the same feeling of abandonment.
Jane Staats is a visionary yet a realist; one whose practicality and spirit toward her town can inform and protect the people of Hillsborough. She embraces individuality and recognizes the shortcomings that a homogenous republican township committee projects onto our quaint township. I endorse her because it is evident to me that she will help restore a perspective of objectivity to the township committee and challenge the agenda of the all-republican committee. Hillsborough needs to change the status quo if we have any hope of growing together as a community.
Harrison ‘Harry’ Burke and I actually grew up together. We may both be younger than the majority of the running candidates have been in previous years, but youth brings diversity to ideas, creativity to tasks, and new concepts to bring Hillsborough from its state of undisputed stasis. I remember as middle-schoolers, Harry was never bashful about asking questions. It set the precedent years ago for curiosity and meaningful dialogue in his prospective seat on the township committee. His natural inclination to create discussion and get answers is exactly what we need. Even years after grade school, we don’t agree on everything and yet I know he’s got an ear to lend and an eye for opportunity to learn new perspectives.
How can we expect changes if we don’t have those conversations within our chamber? How can we trust our representatives if they do not take into consideration any substantial differences of opinion to their own? I do not want my town to work on its own agenda while it ignores the preferences of the very population it alleges to serve and represent. I worked with the grassroots for hours without a single township representative remotely interested in our endeavors. Not once did any political figure reach out to us to ask what our goals were: we were outcast. It is time for discussion, finding new methods, and keeping the people in mind with every decision that is made in ‘one of the greatest places to live’.
I’m grateful to live in Hillsborough, therefore I am proud to endorse Staats & Burke: the two committee candidates who would be just as proud to represent all of us voters.
Rikki Lyn Hauss
Hillsborough
