Marylou Ferrara
Marylou has a BA in philosophy from the College of the Holy Cross, and a law degree from Rutgers University, where she was named a Marshall-Brennan Fellow.
​
Marylou first moved to Hopewell Boro in 1979 with her young family, and then from 1982-2016, she lived in Hopewell Township. She returned to Hopewell Boro in 2016, and has served on the Planning Board since that time.
In 1996, while a stay-at-home mom of three, Marylou was a co-founder of the Coalition to Save Hopewell Valley, created in response to the massive Merrill Lynch application which would have expanded sewers into the Township, potentially causing an explosion of further development in the rural areas of the municipality.
In 1998, friends wrote her name in for the primary for Township Committee, and her slate went on to become the first Democrats elected in Hopewell Township over 20 years. In her second year, she was selected to preside as Mayor, a position she held twice, along with that of Deputy Mayor. One of the first orders of business was to negotiate with cable providers and require them to provide live video coverage of municipal meetings. The Historic Preservation Commission was also established during her first term. During her two terms, as liaison to the Planning Board, she oversaw a complete revamping of the Master Plan to create one based on natural resource and infrastructure capacity.
The rezoning based on that plan, which created the Valley Agriculture Resource Area and the Mountain Conservation Resource Area was challenged by developers, but was upheld by the Superior Court and the Appellate Division and is still in effect today.
After her terms in office, Marylou served two terms as a member of the Board of Trustees of The Watershed Institute, where she twice chaired the yearly FEST, the major fundraiser that supports the work of the organization and was a member of the advocacy committee. She also was appointed to the Zoning Board of Adjustment, where she served until she moved to the Borough.
She was a founder and President of the Board of Trustees of a 501(c)3 non-profit providing horseback riding instruction to special needs and at-risk children. SPIRIT (Special People Include Riding In Therapy) was one of the first such certified programs in New Jersey.
Marylou has since served on the Board of a number of non-profits, notably as the Vice President and chair of advocacy at the Sourland Conservancy, and as a founding Board Member of the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum (SSAAM).
Looking for a more walkable community when it was time to downsize, Marylou knew she would move to Hopewell Borough, where she immediately volunteered to be appointed to the Planning Board, and currently serves as Vice Chair.
She knew Heidi from when they had worked together on a successful grassroots effort to stop irresponsible overdevelopment at Pennytown. Then when the 2016 election ended with Trump’s election, they reconnected. Together, they set up the Hopewell Borough Busses to Washington, and brought down dozens of people to the Women’s March. Following up and building on that energy, they were galvanized to create an organization to make political and social advocacy accessible to the community, and co-founded Hope Rises Up – a 501(c)3 dedicated to just that. HRU has facilitated educational and outreach programs around LGBTQIA+ issues, Racial Justice, community building, and more.
Marylou and Heidi have a successful history of working together for the benefit of the community, and are eager to put that energy into creating a more accessible and responsive local government for Hopewell Borough.
