Ken Kouba announced his candidacy for the Haddonfield Board of Commissioners today.
He is a 24-year-old barista and partner in the Jersey Java & Tea cafe on Haddon and Redman avenues.
Kouba is the sixth candidate to announce a run for the three seats on the board, the highest elected borough officials. The other candidates are incumbent commissioners, Ed Borden and Jeff Kasko, and challengers Lee Albright, John Moscatelli and Neal Rochford.
Kouba said he's running because he wants to build a stronger community.
"The community is being affected by high taxes in more ways than you think," he said during a phone interview Monday. "People have put their children through school and their children's children through school, and at the same time those children can't afford to move back into the community because of the high taxes. Kids my age are coming back with a lot of college debt, cost of living, difficulty finding jobs in their industries and I feel it's changing the community."
Kouba said he'd like to do something to "rein in taxes" but did not discuss any specific solutions. He said friends and supporters convinced him he should run.
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He also makes the best of coffee in Haddonfield!
Remember when in 2008 Obama said the $9T debt was irresponsible and unpatriotic and he would cut it in half. It's $17T now. Math was never his strong suit. Is it yours?
Speculation increases that the write in candidacy of Patrick Walsh for borough commissioner is gaining steam!
AEI: "Between fiscal year (FY) 1950 and FY 2009, the number of K-12 public school students in the United States increased by 96 percent, while the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) school employees grew 386 percent. Public schools grew staffing at a rate four times faster than the increase in students over that time period. Of those personnel, teachers' numbers increased 252 percent, while administrators and other non-teaching staff experienced growth of 702 percent, more than seven times the increase in students."
"A 2003 OECD study asked pupils of many lands whether they got "good marks in mathematics." Seventy-two percent of U.S. students said yes. Only 56 percent of Finns did, and a mere 25 percent of Hong Kong pupils. Yet, according to another OECD study of the world's Ninth Graders, Hong Kong has the third best math scores in the world, Finland the second, and the top spot goes to Taiwan (which didn't participate in the earlier feelgood study, presumably because their self-esteem levels are so low they're undetectable). Where do all those Americans so confident of their "good marks" in math actually rank in the global Hit Parade? Number 35, between Azerbaijan and Croatia. We barely scrape the Top 40 in actual math, but we're Number One in self-esteem about our math."