The first council meeting of 2024 might feel a little strange to some in Hopewell Borough.
It will be the first meeting to be held since 2004 in which neither Paul Anzano nor Charles Schuyler “Sky” Morehouse is serving as mayor or on council.
In that time, Anzano served one term on council and four as mayor. Morehouse, meanwhile, served seven consecutive terms on council, starting in 2003.
In Anzano’s case, the departure has been planned for some time. He announced early last year that he would not run again for mayor, though he says he had known for a while that his fourth term would be his last.
Morehouse, on the other hand, was in the running in November for an eighth straight term on the council where, despite being the lone Republican among six members, he had served as president in 2023.
However, after all the votes had been counted, Morehouse had received the third most, behind Democratic candidates Sheri Hook and Heidi Wilenius. Only two seats were in play.
By no means does that mean that Morehouse has moved on from life as an elected official: he remains a fire commissioner, a role he has held since 1990, and one in which he says he intends to continue.
Though Anzano, a Democrat, and Morehouse have represented different parties through the years, they were always united in their dedication to serving the people who had elected them. They sat down with the Express at borough hall for a few hours in early December to chat about their time in office.
“In my 16 years as mayor, it was always about doing what was best for the borough,” Anzano said. “I always said to people that we were elected, and by electing us, people were trusting us to manage the affairs of the borough properly.”
Morehouse said that this mandate requires council and the mayor to think critically about the issues that are brought before them.
“I can’t help it. I’m an engineer. With an engineering mind, you think in terms of, all problems have constants and variables. I don’t see that there’s any problem that can come before this board that can’t be solved with critical thinking about those components,” he said.
A major focus for both mayor and council in recent years has been in making the borough more walkable and more attractive. They saw deterioration of the pavement and sidewalks along Broad Street and felt that it made the town less appealing.
Anzano, a former counsel to the state Senate and a former deputy commissioner of the Department of Banking and Finance, was able to use his ins at the state to help secure $900,000 in funding to address the issues.
“Your connection to the state was vital to the borough,” Morehouse said to Anzano in our meeting. “We got funding that we never would have been able to do if not for that.”
The funds enabled the borough to install hitching posts and lay in brick crosswalks. “That really changed the character of the town,” Anzano said. “Not just for residents, but for visitors as well. People may step on it everyday and not notice, but that’s one of the things I’m most proud of. The other thing is playgrounds.”
In 2009, the state mandated that Hopewell’s playgrounds be dismantled for failure to meet modern safety standards. “We were looking at how Public Works could put in new parks and a group of women — Michelle Brennan, Rachel Webster and Annette Murphy — came to us and said they were going to take charge of this effort,” Anzano said.
The borough helped raise the funds needed to get the project started, while the women helped to assemble a volunteer squad to install the new facilities.
“In seven days in June of 2009, we had 500 volunteers build two playgrounds,” Anzano said. “As a result of that, people came to the town and people stayed in town. The playgrounds were not only beneficial to their children, they were also a nice attraction for people who might want to move here.”
“At the end of the day, it cost the borough nothing,” Morehouse added. “Between the fundraising and the volunteer labor, all of our costs were covered.”
Another major milestone for the borough during Anzano’s and Morehouse’s tenure was the move to the current borough hall in 2009, relocating the municipal government from its prior home on Columbia Avenue.
The former Masonic temple at 88 E. Broad St. turned out to be the ideal new home. “This building was important,” Anzano said. “It provided more of an identity for the borough. The old borough hall was terrible. It was above the firehouse, it was not ADA compliant,” he said. “If someone had a stroller, they couldn’t bring the stroller up. It was terrible.
“This building, we didn’t have to renovate the front of it. We purchased it, renovated it for municipal purposes and it did give the town an identity. People did like the fact that they have a borough hall that looks like a borough hall.”
Morehouse said that Anzano deserved credit for his leadership in helping bring all three of the above projects to fruition.
“What’s really interesting about all three of these components was, the deliverable was grand and the cost was low,” Morehouse said. “Through Paul’s work securing the federal grant for the streetscape, we were able to address what was a true need at minimal cost.
“On the Masonic lodge, the Masons wanted to sell. They wanted to get out of the building because it was not being maintained. But the thing that made this building the beauty that it is, is that we had an anonymous benefactor in the town that produced a substantial donation that allowed us to purchase this building and do what we were trying to do. It was money that was extremely well spent.
“The playgrounds, as Paul alluded to — the value added to that was almost infinite because the costs were so miniscule. These folks went out, they found the money, they solicited the company that provided the playground and all provided all of the labor. It was one of the most remarkable community-building experiences that I’ve lived with.”
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Anzano and his wife Christine moved to Hopewell from Trenton. “My youngest was born in 1999, and Christine was getting out more with the baby. She would come here for the children’s theater when Bob Thick was running it, and that’s how she got familiar with the borough,” he said. “When we decided to move out of Trenton, I said, ‘Christine, if we have city water and sewer, I’ll live anywhere,’ and she said, ‘I think Hopewell is nice.’ And that’s how we got here.”
Anzano said spending his career working for and with the state gave him an advantage when he decided to run for office. “For my entire working career, I’ve been involved with elected officials and government. It was easy for me to be mayor in that regard. I wasn’t walking into a strange environment. I also knew what I didn’t want to do,” he said. “I’ve been around good politicians and bad politicians, and you had to see that to learn it.”
Anzano said retiring from public office is the first step in a retirement plan. “My wife and I spoke about it. I’m 68, she’s 58 and we’re both talking about retiring. She still has a lot of professional work time in her, but my first step is to stop all the volunteer stuff. I’ve been talking about not running again for four years. One of the reasons I did run is I wanted to be involved in government while my kids were in school, but now my youngest is graduated.
“Once I jettison the volunteer stuff, I can focus on fixing up the other stuff that would permit me to retire.”
Morehouse, who was born in Mendham, settled in Hopewell in 1986 with wife Liza. In 1990, he founded Morehouse Engineering, and first ran for fire commissioner around the same time. “I grew up in a family where it was expected of you, if you were able, to get involved. It is an obligation — we are very fortunate to have what we’ve got, and if you don’t give back, you don’t have any appreciation for what’s in front of you,” he said. “This is a very good community. Both of my children grew up in this community. It’s the longest I’ve lived in any one place.”
Morehouse has spent many years chairing the fire commission, which keeps him deeply involved with Hopewell’s emergency medical and fire community. “In our town, it is a regional fire and emergency medical group and we, with the township and Pennington, work toegether to provide these services. That is a very delicate task, because we’re not dealing with paid people. These are volunteers who wake up in the middle of the night and do their thing.
“One of the things I’m sort of disappointed about (not being re-elected) is that council is going to lose the voice for emergency medical services and fire. Across the State of New Jersey, emergency medical service is in jeopardy — it’s much bigger than (Hopewell Borough). We talk about things like, if the volunteers in our area disappeared, our budget for emergency medical services would go from $600k to about $2.5million.”
He has no plans to step away from his role on the fire commission, and in fact on the day we met, he and Anzano had come from Aunt Chubby’s Luncheonette, where they had taken part in an informal breakfast session with a number of community stakeholders, including a new council member, a sitting council member, the chair of the Hopewell Library and a member of the fire department.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “My wife sits as chair of the board for Morven, which has just been selected as one of four primary sites in New Jersey to recognize the 250th anniversary of American independence.”
Morehouse said the community should be excited about the new elected officials coming in, Sheri Hook and Heidi Wilenius.
”Sheri Hook and I talked about it not being a political job. I looked her square in the eye and I said, ‘There’s only a few things you have to remember as an elected official: one is, it’s not your money. It’s just that simple. Whether you’re looking at your budget or bonding or capital projects or capital reserve, ego has nothing to do with it. Everyone that has served on this council for the years I’ve been involved with it has been completely unself-serving.
“I don’t mean to be blowing our own horn but at the end of the day it’s the only council I could live with. If we were living with disinformation and squabble and personal things, I would have given up long ago. We have our arguments and disagreements, but it’s true governance.”
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Succeeding Anzano this month as mayor will be former council member Ryan Kennedy, who got to know both Anzano and Morehouse well during his time on council.
“We’re losing some height diversity with both Paul and Sky leaving council,” Kennedy joked in a phone conversation with the Express. (To illustrate his point, see the photo on the cover.)
“Paul’s service and guidance to the borough for these past 16 years as mayor and longer still before that as councilperson — we can’t replace that. His dedication to our town shows up in a lot of different ways that maybe everyone didn’t see all the time,” he said.
Kennedy cited the example of the game of Hope-opoly, an Anzano-led project to create a Hopewell Borough-themed Monopoly-type game to raise funds for the Hopewell Public Library.
“Using community members to design it, getting sponsors and having the proceeds support the library — it’s amazing to see what he was able to do, and it was just one of many examples. I know he will continue to support our community, but he will be missed in this role.”
Kennedy said Morehouse’s experience and knowledge of the town is “not replaceable.”
“Hopewell Borough is a very progressive, and, if you look at the numbers, very democratic town,” he said. “But Sky Morehouse is a person that earned everyone’s respect and appreciation regardless of party. I’m disappointed by the prospect of not having him next to me at the dais, but I know that he’s going to remain a fixture in this community, whether it’s his work for our fire department and first responders or any one of the many other charities and community efforts he supports.
“In government and in life, there are a few people you come across that are true gentlemen, and Sky is the epitome of that. He always listened, always lent his knowledge, is very generous with his time, and his approach to leadership and governance with a steady hand brought everyone to the table and made them feel heard.”
Outgoing Hopewell Borough Council president Charles Schuyler “Sky” Morehouse and outgoing borough mayor Paul Anzano in borough hall, Dec. 1, 2023. (Staff photo by Joe Emanski.),
