At this year’s annual township reorganization meeting in January, two-term committee member Michael Ruger took the reins as mayor of Hopewell for the first time.
He succeeded Courtney Peters-Manning, who was a first-time mayor herself in 2022. Peters-Manning is serving as deputy mayor this year. This means that the committee’s three senior members (Ruger, Peters-Manning and Kevin Kuchinski) have now all taken at least one turn as leader of the committee. Uma Purandare and David Chait are the committee’s other members.
Each year, the committee nominates and then votes on which members will become mayor and deputy mayor for the year. Considering the committee’s now longstanding Democratic majority — John Hart was the last Republican to serve, in 2019 — the choice of mayor often comes down to which member of the committee is most ready to make the commitment.
“Courtney had an absolutely fantastic term as mayor last year,” Ruger said in an interview last month. “I served as her deputy. This year, we talked about it and with my twins graduating this year, it works out that it’s a good time for me to do it.”
As mayor, Ruger serves as chair of township committee meetings, sets the agenda for meetings.
“I always consider us equals, but the mayor is the chair because somebody has to chair,” Ruger said.
The mayor is the member of the committee who works most closely with the township administrator, George Snyder. The mayor represents the township at events and, of course, has the power to officiate a marriage ceremony, a privilege that Ruger has already had the chance to enjoy.
Ruger said that while all the committee members work pretty closely with the township administrator, as mayor he has weekly phone meetings with Snyder to talk about township issues. “He keeps me informed about what’s going on with the departments, and I offer the advice and guidance that I can,” Ruger said. “We have an excellent working relationship, and I’m really glad we have him leading the township staff.”
One of our most important duties as a committee, Ruger said, is to develop and deliver a “responsible, realistic” budget. The committee started work on the capital budget in January with hopes to finish work on it by the end of February.
Then it’s on to the operating budget, with the hope of having a complete budget proposal together by the beginning of April.
“If we can adopt the capital budget earlier in the year, we tend to get better prices on things like road repairs than later in the year,” he said.
Another issue in front of the committee for 2023 is the state of cannabis-related businesses in the township. The committee opted to allow limited cannabis cultivation, manufacturing and sales in 2021, when these things became legal at the state level. But the state’s Cannabis Regulatory Commission has moved slowly in granting licenses to operators statewide.
“We have one company that is interested in a cultivation and manufacturing license in the township, and we have several individuals who have applied for cannabis retail sale operations,” Ruger said. “We are waiting to see what the CRC says about those before any of those applications go forward.”
Ruger said he expects the committee to review a number of ordinances this year. He said these reviews could lead to changes to the township’s sign and food truck ordinances.
“During the pandemic, we had several local businesses interested in having food trucks on their properties. We don’t have an ordinance that fully addresses that,” Ruger said. “I’d like to see us create an ordinance that makes a formal process for that.”
He says advances in sign technology have left the township’s sign ordinance behind the times. “We’ve heard people talking about the sizes and types of signs a business may have here,” Ruger said. “Times have changed with the way advertising technology works and we need to make sure our ordinance properly reflects that.”
As the committee’s liaison to the Woolsey Park Committee, Ruger is looking forward to the construction and dedication of the Woolsey Park Bandshell later this year. “We received a $500,000 grant from the state to build a bandshell which was very exciting. Once it is built, it’s going to be a terrific amenity for the park,” he said.
Ruger expects to see some significant progress this year on the long-discussed senior and community center this year. “There are a lot of moving pieces that have to be put together,” he said. “One of the keys, when the township received $16 million in consideration for the Zaitz tract, was that there was space reserved for a senior and community center. As these pieces come together, we will be able to make an announcement. I do hope that we will see progress this year.”
Construction has begun on affordable and market-rate housing in the lower portion of the township, and Ruger said sales may begin at some point this year.
“The ability for people to come to Hopewell Township, to me, is exciting. One of the things I see is the lifecycle of people living in Hopewell Township. Someone who is starting their career will be able to come here live there for a year or two (in the new housing), then if they want to move to a larger place, they can live in the same neighborhood in a larger home,” he said. “But maybe when they get to the point where they are retiring, they can move to a smaller home and they can all stay in Hopewell Township. I think that giving people that option is a very exciting thing.”
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Ruger grew up in Willistown Township, west of Philadelphia. He remembers the Willistown Township of his childhood as being “very much like Hopewell Township. A lot of rural areas, horse farms, open space. When I moved here, Hopewell Township felt very familiar to me.”
He attended Penn State as an undergrad before heading down to Washington to get a law degree from Georgetown University. He remained in Washington afterward, working a number of years for the Federal Communications Commission, and there he met his wife, Theresa “Tracy” Vogler, a Hopewell native.
“We came to Hopewell Township frequently because her mother lived in the house that Tracy grew up in,” he said. “We knew that at some point we wanted to move here.”
That opportunity came in 1998, when Vogler got a job as a lawyer in Philadelphia and Ruger took a consulting job with Comcast. They bought Vogler’s mother’s house, and now they have been settled here for 25 years. Ruger’s mother, Betty, has also become a township resident.
Ruger joined Comcast full time in 2003, and today serves as its vice president of local government affairs for policy and operations. Vogler, who also has a law degree, left the workforce in 2004 to be a stay-at-home mom to their three children: eldest son Teddy and twins Billy and Bobby, who are seniors at Hopewell Valley Central High School.
Ruger says there came a time when he thought about what he could do to help his local community. “I’ve spent my entire career either working for or around governments,” he said. “I’ve always had great respect for people who choose government as a career.”
He ran first and unsuccessfully for a seat on the school board. In 2016, he made another run, this time for Hopewell Township Committee. Again he was unsuccessful.
“With that election, I remember there was a doorhanger where Hillary Clinton was at the top of it, I was at the bottom of it, and that November every Democrat in between us won,” he said. “I decided to give it another chance the next year, and I’m glad that I did.
Hopewell Township Mayor Michael Ruger, left, with sons Bobby and Billy and wife Tracy Vogler on Jan. 27, 2023. (Photo by Mike Schwartz/mssphoto.com.),
