We’re at a crossroads again.
Chart New Course believes the significant change evident all around us makes this the right moment to ask the question: is our municipal structure right for us?
Our own effort started as a citizen petition to change our form of government — and we collected hundreds of signatures and recruited volunteers to help our effort. Our effort spurred the Township Committee into action, and this November’s ballot will ask voters whether to establish a Charter Study Commission to examine our form of government.
Here’s why now is the right time.
Residents feel this moment firsthand. New development is reshaping neighborhoods that hadn’t changed in decades, and school enrollment near some of it has grown fast enough that dozens of local families are being reassigned to different elementary schools this fall. Beyond our borders, technology is remaking how people work, communicate, and expect their institutions to run, and nationally the divide between the two parties has never felt sharper. Hopewell isn’t immune to any of it.
What residents have, right now, is a real chance to make their voices heard this November — a chance to decide how Hopewell Township will respond to this moment of change. In the end, that question will fall to you, the voter.
The numbers have outgrown the structure.
Hopewell Township has more than tripled in population since 1950, from 4,731 residents then to roughly 18,500 today. Its Township Committee form of government traces back to a 1798 state law — 228 years old this year. That’s built for a population a fraction of today’s, long before anyone here was managing PILOT agreements, shared service contracts, or a growing multimillion-dollar budget.
Residents feel this moment even without reading a budget — but the budget tells the same story. It now sits at roughly $36.8 million, up from $25.2 million just four years ago — a 46% increase, and up nearly 50% from $24.6 million just over a decade ago, in 2015. The township employs 128 people, has added 13 full-time jobs in the last three years, and now spends about 60% of its discretionary budget on insurance and employee benefits.
PILOT revenue alone — payments developers make in lieu of property taxes — jumped 160% in a single year, from $3.5 million to $9.09 million, now covering roughly a quarter of the budget. Residents have little transparency into how any of these deals are negotiated or spent — a gap that matters more, not less, as PILOT revenue is projected to keep growing in the years to come.
Residents in those new developments aren’t exempt from those effects either — they live with the consequences of the growth PILOTs underwrite just like everyone else. Hopewell Township has become larger and more complicated than it used to be — bigger than the government structure running it was ever built to handle.
This isn’t a question of political party — but every party belongs at the table.
Structure, accountability, transparency aren’t Republican or Democratic concerns — they’re everyone’s concerns. Chart New Course has involved Democrats, Republicans, and Independents from the start by design, because questions this fundamental should involve everyone.
That’s also why a Charter Study Commission works the way it does: five residents, elected this November, will be tasked to study the options and provide a recommendation. It is only then, in the second referendum in November 2027, that Hopewell Township voters decide if they agree. No predetermined outcome this year, no mandate — just a process run all the way through.
This November, we’re not asking you to change Hopewell Township. We’re asking you to authorize a careful, public look — without a foregone conclusion — at whether the government we have still fits the township we’ve become.
Support the Charter Commission question this fall. Learn more about government structures in New Jersey and join us at chartnewcourse.org
Chart New Course is represented by Chad Goerner, Michael Markulec, Tamera Matteo, Vanessa Sandom, and John Hart — a bipartisan group of former local officials, a veteran, financial professionals, an attorney, business owners, and a direct descendant of the signer of the Declaration of Independence.
