Just two days after her loss in the 2015 mayoral race, Democrat Amy Inman went back to work.
She stood before Hamilton Township council Nov. 5, and presented her plan for implementing Project SAVE, a program used by police in Gloucester, Camden County, to combat drug abuse. Tackling opiate addiction in Hamilton is just one item on Inman’s post-election checklist, and her council appearance served as notice she’s serious about her vow not to go away just because she lost an election.
Incumbent Kelly Yaede won a new four-year term as mayor handily (10,394 votes to 7,055), but Inman felt she had a victory of her own. Inman claimed 40 percent of the vote, becoming the first Democratic mayoral candidate in Hamilton since Glen Gilmore in 2007 to reach that number.
“I was pleasantly surprised,” Inman said. “I had no name recognition. I had never been in politics before. I had $20,000 to work with, and I had three months to campaign. When we saw we got 40 percent of the vote, we were really happy with that. Forty percent of the people said they’d rather have someone they had never seen or heard of before than what was currently in office.”
Inman said her campaign did what it could with limited time and resources. Originally on the ticket as a council candidate, Inman joined the mayoral race in July as a last-minute replacement for Jill Moyer, who dropped out for personal reasons. The Inman campaign raised just $7,850, according to her November 2015 state Election Law Enforcement Commission report, seven times less than Yaede this year and 21 times less than what Democratic mayoral candidate Barbara Plumeri raised in 2013.
“I stick by every issue I raised during the campaign,” Inman said. “We have some big problems that still need fixing.”
Among those problems, Inman said, are drug addiction, the state of the school playgrounds and economic development.
Inman also said in 2016 she will present a proposal for tighter municipal Pay to Play laws. She suggested recent ordinance changes and development were a direct result of campaign contributions by developers and corporations to Yaede and the Republican Party. Inman seemed to be referencing the battle over Wawa gas stations on U.S. 130 at the former Harry’s Army/Navy site and Route 33 at the former Patterson Chevrolet location. In March 2014, Wawa’s PAC donated $1,500 to Yaede’s campaign. Township ordinances limiting the location of gas stations had to be altered to allow Wawa at either location.
During the campaign, Yaede pointed to the Wawas and a new Walmart at Suburban Plaza on Nottingham Way as proof her administration had economic development in the township going in the right direction. Inman criticized Yaede, saying the mayor wasn’t thinking big enough.
“You can go to any town and find a Walmart or a Wawa or a Walgreen’s,” Inman said. “We need a bigger plan for Hamilton.”
Inman said the experience has motivated her to become even more active, and she pledged to be a regular at township council and Board of Education meetings.
