There were two seats up for grabs on the Bordentown Regional Board of Education in 2018, but just one candidate on that November’s ballot: incumbent Salvatore Schiano. No one else in Bordentown Township had petitioned to be a candidate to seek a seat on the nine-member board.
One person in the community launched a late campaign as a write-in candidate: Aneka Miller, then a 12-year resident of the township. And that is how Miller began her career as an elected official.
In 2021, Miller ran alongside now-Burlington County sheriff James Kostoplis for a seat on the Bordentown Township Committee. She was elected, and has served on the committee ever since.
At the Jan. 3 township reorganization meeting, Miller reached a new milestone: she was nominated and then elected by her fellow committee members to serve as mayor of Bordentown Township for 2026.
That gives Miller the distinction of being the first Black mayor in the history of the township. Eugene M. Fuzy will serve as deputy mayor in 2026.
“My path to becoming Bordentown Township’s first Black Mayor has always been rooted in service and the pursuit of excellence,” Miller says. “It has been made possible by those who believed in me, mentored me and encouraged me to lead.”
Miller grew up in Plainfield, the eldest of two sisters. She went on to graduate from Morgan State University in Baltimore with a degree in electrical engineering. She later attended Rutgers University, where she obtained a master’s degree in strategic business management.
Miller began her professional career as a systems engineer at Telcordia before moving into the pharmaceutical industry. There, she has held jobs in communications and project management, business risk management, supply chain planning and regulatory affairs.
Miller met her husband Clint in college. They have two children: daughter Enikah, 25, who has recently moved to Ewing, and son Ari, 19, a student at Arizona State University. They lived for a time in Westampton before settling in The Preserve at Meadow Run, where they have lived for nearly 20 years.
She says that long before she ever held public office, she made a commitment to listening, learning, and showing up consistently for her neighbors. She has served as a member of Bordentown school PTOs and the Bordentown Sewerage Authority board.
She has volunteered with Literacy Volunteers of America, supported Habitat For Humanity, and participated in PACE, the program for the Advancement of Careers in Engineering.
“I feel like I’ve always been driven to serve the community in some capacity,” Miller says. “Since I was a child I’ve been doing some type of volunteer initiative. It wasn’t until I got out of college I was able to devote time to community service.”
Miller and her husband naturally became more involved in the community as their children grew up. Ari played football with the Bordentown Bulldogs from the age of 5 through age 18. “Between that, the PTOs, juggling track and art for my daughter, we stayed busy,” Miller says.
She co-founded Building Bridges, a group of volunteers whose mission is to help make connections among white people and people of color in the Bordentown community.
“It started out of desire to connect folks in the community from past generations in Bordentown from the Black community and the white community so that we are whole,” Miller says. “So that we can learn from one another and be united in that front and not have a negative context between our views of each other. Because we have so much more in common than we have differences.”
She says that she launched a write-in campaign for school board to stay a part of her children’s lives and to become an influence in that part of the community. One way that she did that as a board member involved her son, who had expressed frustration to her about the unevenness of the football field ground.
She asked him to write a letter about the issue and present it to the school board during a meeting. “He was very nervous, but he did it,” she says. “That’s something that I would definitely love to do as mayor — involve youth more to get them engaged and want to participate in government in their community.
“In your youth, you don’t realize how much you can give back. The time is to start now. Like they say, ‘Be the change that you want to see,’” she says.
After the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020, Miller was asked to make a speech in Bordentown City about her thoughts regarding the state of the world in the aftermath of the incident. She was a school board member at the time.
“I got a lot of feedback from folks, that they were moved by what I said,” she says. “The question was asked, ‘Have you ever considered [running for township committee]?”
And though she had not yet considered it, by 2022, she was sitting on the committee.
She points out that even though her title is mayor, she remains one voice of five on the township committee. “Some people think the mayor has the last say, that the mayor makes decisions on behalf of the committee, and that’s not the case,” she says. “I’m a fifth of the vote.”
Nevertheless, she is looking forward to making an impact in the community in the coming year, especially in terms of quality of life.
One area where she is hopeful of making a difference is in addressing the dangerous intersection of U.S. 130 and Dunns Mill Road.
“I really want to work with the Department of Transportation regarding getting a left turn signal at the light there,” she says. “I know it’s not 100% my decision, but I would love to be able to influence that, get confirmation and buy-in from the DOT that it will happen.”
Miller will also have the privilege of serving as mayor when the new municipal building opens. Barring unforeseen delays, it is slated to open in the second quarter of the year, possibly even sooner.
“I’m just excited for this opportunity to be involved and to continue what we started in terms of building relationships with the community,” Miller says. “I want to be a mayor that people feel comfortable calling or talking to. And I’ve received a lot of emails from people that I don’t know congratulating me. I look forward to hearing from more folks — what works, what doesn’t work. How can I help?
“This role comes with responsibility, and I take that seriously. My focus as mayor is on listening, making thoughtful decisions, and ensuring our township operates with fairness, transparency and care for every resident.”
Bordentown Township mayor Aneka Miller and deputy mayor Eugene M. Fuzy.,
