George Borek and Alison Miller are mainstays on the political scene, but the third candidate on the “Community First” Council ticket is a newcomer with a law office on Roszel Road. Ayesha Hamilton and her family moved to West Windsor in 2013, and she has grown to love the town.
Two weeks after moving into town, she signed up her two children for Black Bear Lake Day Camp, and another mother invited her family to grab pizza together.
“I thought, my god we hit the jackpot on the town,” Hamilton says. “That says a lot, that they would go out on a limb, that’s rare.”
Hamilton grew up in Bombay, now known as Mumbai, and left India to study abroad at Case Western Reserve University in the early 1990s. Her father worked in advertising and her mother started an encyclopedia distribution company. Both currently run Lotus Learning, an education company specializing in English language software.
In her first week at Case Western, she met Brian Hamilton, and the two eventually married. She studied law at Case Western while Brian earned his doctorate in chemical engineering at Princeton.
They relocated from Lansdale, Pennsylvania, to West Windsor in 2013, to move closer to Brian’s pharmaceutical job at Allergan in North Brunswick.
Another reason? The schools, of course. Son Kieran attends Grover Middle School and daughter Ava goes to Village School. They both swim for the Peddie aquatics team and play travel soccer.
Hamilton started her solo practice in 2005, working as a generalist before specializing in employment law. She primarily represents those who have been fired or are about to be fired. She also counsels small businesses on how to steer clear of employment discrimination.
Of her employee cases, she estimates half are age discrimination claims and the other half are gender discrimination against women. Race discrimination is also an issue, but those claims are more difficult to prove.
Age discrimination cases are prevalent, she says. Typically a longtime employee is terminated and replaced by a younger, cheaper, worker.
With respect to gender discrimination, she points out that senior management in corporate America and those holding public office are overwhelmingly male. She describes a case when a female mid-level manager bumped up against the so-called glass ceiling. Her position was eliminated and a younger male effectively took over her position under a new title.
“Generally most senior management are men, and they want to promote their boys,” Hamilton says. “When it comes to gender, it’s really not equal. We need more women at the higher levels of government and companies.”
Greater representation and visibility for women is a passion for Hamilton. She is a member of the National Association of Women Business Owners and a board member at Athena Powerlink, an organization that provides advisory panels for women business owners. In fact, she says her feelings about the issue ultimately led to her decision to run for office.
She was approached last June to run for Council, but with a busy work and child schedule, and having never been involved in politics, she at first declined.
“What do they say? If you want something done, give it to a busy person,” Hamilton says. “When they asked a second time, I had an ‘aha’ moment and thought, if I’m concerned about women in corporate America and women in public roles, then I need to step up and take the opportunity to get there.”
Her family has a record of public service. One grandfather was a meteorologist at the National Observatory, and another was a governor of the India Reserve Bank.
Representing employees against their present or former employers, Hamilton says being an objective and balanced problem solver is what she does for a living, and these skills would assist her as a Council member.
Asked what she thought about joining a politically charged Council she says: “A lot of the issues, we’re probably coming out on the same side. I see there is some level of argument and refusal to consider certain plans because it is proposed by a certain individual. I think there’s a lack of respect for our elected officials. I don’t think that is an efficient way to run a town.”
Hamilton says she votes Democrat, but at the local level, she says, “I don’t ask people to vote for party lines. What I ask is to call me up and ask questions, get to know the candidate. If you have an issue, let me know.”
She has enjoyed knocking on doors and meeting neighbors. Residents have asked her about lowering property taxes.
“The bulk of taxes go to the schools, and I’m okay with that,” Hamilton says. “I say to people, if you want to lower taxes, then you’re going to lose a lot of the attributes of the town.”
Traffic safety is a concern, and she wants to balance improvement without generating an unreasonable tax burden.
“We don’t want to run the risk of stagnating,” Hamilton says. “That doesn’t mean spend a bunch of money, but instead think of creative ways of improving an already great environment.”
