After 25 years of service to Hopewell Township residents, Township Administrator/CFO Elaine Borges retired at the end of 2020. At the December 21 Committee meeting, Township elected officials, employees, and residents honored Borges with surprise messages of well-wishes filling virtual Zoom windows with “thanks”. The Township Committee also presented Borges with an official proclamation and plaque with the Township seal honoring her years of work and thanked her for her commitment to service on behalf of the Township.
Borges served as the Certified Municipal Finance Officer of Hopewell Township for the past 25 years, appointed on August 22, 1995 and reappointed on January 5, 1998 and also served as Treasurer for the Township of Hopewell. In September 2017, Borges was appointed as Assistant Township Administrator and then as Acting Township Administrator in October, 2017 to provide for a smooth transition from the former Township Administrator. On January 1, 2018, Borges was appointed as Township Administrator/CFO and served in that role until her retirement.
The proclamation applauded Borges for having “dedicated her career to passionately protecting and preserving the Hopewell Township community and its quality of life” asserting that “the quality of life in Hopewell Township so appreciated by its residents is maintained in part because of Elaine’s dedication to it.”
Borges thanked all the Committee members she’s worked with,”It’s not always that you get to work with five different bosses at one time,” Borges said referring to the Committee members. “For the residents of Hopewell, you’ve all taught me something — I haven’t known all of you but I’ve known a lot of you… We live in a great place with great residents,” said Borges, who thanked the residents, nonprofits, volunteers, and employees of the Township. Borges also thanked her family, joking, “To my husband and son – I hope you take me back in the house again.”
Former Committee members and mayors thanked Borges for her work including Mark Markulec and Vanessa Sandom. “I know I could trust you to be honest and you have the residents and colleagues at heart and put them above yourself. You’ve worked long and hard despite some tough times. Thank you very much,” said Sandom.
Kristin McLaughling, who was mayor at the time of the meeting, thanked Borges, “I was raised by an incredibly public service, my mother, and Elaine Borges takes that to a level that I don’t think anyone could replicate. When she said she wished she could have met every resident, she really meant that. When we ask her how things are going to affect the residents of the town, there is no one I would go to other than Elaine because she gets it — as a resident, a parent, an employee, a friend.”
