Three candidates are running for two seats in the Democratic primary (June 2) for Maplewood Township Committee. Village Green is accepting letters of support through Sunday, May 24 at 5 p.m. See our guidelines for submission here. Read our election coverage here.
Our names are Allison Petty and Chris Hollenbeck, and we are residents of Maplewood, New Jersey. We are writing to express our enthusiastic support for Martin Ceperley.
Our family moved to Maplewood six years ago, drawn in part by the town’s reputation for being welcoming, walkable, diverse, and genuinely community minded. That has proven true, and we are excited to continue to see it grow.
We first connected with Martin at Seth Boyden, where our daughters were in kindergarten together. Since then, we have watched him do something rare, identify a real need in our community and actually do something about it. We watched him organize our school’s bike bus, which has since grown to include multiple schools across our district. Watching the bike bus roll in on a Friday morning is a true joy and a real example of how a community is built. We are also so lucky to get to watch another school’s bike bus roll by our house soon after our daughter leaves to meet ours. Seeing the manifestation of our community ride up and down our streets brings us so much pride to be part of a community that supports these types of actions. Martin’s persistent leadership, building something from the ground up and watching it take root, is exactly what we want to see in local government. He was also instrumental in getting Maplewood’s first bike lane installed, something we are hopeful will continue to evolve and grow.
Street safety is not an abstract issue for our family. Our youngest child is deaf and wears cochlear implants, which means she navigates the world with a different relationship to sound than most people. Safe streets, protected crossings, and traffic-calming measures hold a huge amount of importance for our family. Martin’s work within our community was always about more than getting kids to school on two wheels, it was about creating the conditions for all children to move through their neighborhood safely.
We also want to say how much we have appreciated watching Maplewood continue to grow in thoughtful, exciting ways since we arrived. New businesses, a vibrant downtown and a community that feels alive with growth. We are excited to see multiple business districts continue to grow and evolve, and to see creative ways to connect our town and make our community stronger. They require local leaders who listen, who communicate honestly, and who think carefully about what kind of town we want to be. Martin embodies that, his dedication to growing these parts of town and finding ways to more easily keep our town connected is something we value.
We support Martin Ceperley wholeheartedly and are confident he will bring that same dedication and integrity to this role.
Sincerely,
Allison Petty & Chris Hollenbeck
Maplewood, NJ
