Reader Submitted
To the editor:
We are writing to you today to share our wholehearted support for our friends and candidates for Hopewell Township Committee, Kevin Kuchinski and Michael Ruger.
We use the word “wholehearted” purposefully. Kevin and Michael have the intelligence, financial savviness, determination, and most importantly, the heart, to protect our township from outside threats such as the PennEast Pipeline and the threats created when finances are mismanaged and our community values ignored.
Our families deserve clean water and clean air, and our landowners deserve the right to protect their property from non-local companies that would endanger our children’s health to enrich themselves.
Kuchinski and Ruger have consistently fought to keep PennEast out of Hopewell Township. They wrote letters, consulted with our local and national leaders, coordinated with environmental groups, and attended marches to ensure our land remains safe and unspoiled.
Mayor Kuchinski has spearheaded resolutions calling on FERC and other agencies to require Penn East to follow the law and complete all environmental studies before assessing the application. Both Kevin Kuchinski and Michael Ruger understand that Hopewell Township does not want and does not need this pipeline slashing through the heart of our community.
Mayor Kuchinski and Michael Ruger understand that we must carefully manage our finances. If we want parents to stay in the community after their children graduate from our excellent schools and if we want young adults to be able to move back home so that their children can attend those same schools, we must carefully steward the tax dollars entrusted to us.
Mayor Kuchinski, with the help of Michael Ruger as a member of the Finance Advisory Board, has cut spending to below 2015 levels and paid down our debt. This helps stabilize our finances, all while keeping our municipal tax rate the lowest in Mercer County. Kuchinski and Ruger know that protecting our children’s future means spending wisely today.
Over and over again, our neighbors tell us that they live here because of Hopewell’s sense of community. This community values the people in it. We take care of each other. We are fortunate to have families here who trace their roots to the earliest beginnings of the United States as well as families who have recently arrived from around the world. All now proudly call Hopewell Township home. Kevin Kuchinski and Michael Ruger value and appreciate the ideas and voices of their friends and neighbors.
We urge you to vote Kuchinski and Ruger for Hopewell Township Committee on November 7.
Julie Blake and Kristin McLaughlin
Hopewell Township Committee Members
