LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, Sept. 7
By:
Garage will fail
in public hands
To the editor:
The central problem with the proposed borough parking garage/business/residential complex is that there is no one at the top who is risking his own money to make it work, no entrepreneur who will personally be at the site day after day, arriving if necessary before 8 a.m. and staying after 5 p.m. and no flesh-and-blood owner whose personal income is tied to the successful rental and management. There isn’t even a full-time CEO in charge.
Instead, what we have here is a group of part-time elected officials trying to build an atypical mixed-use project. Can they do it? The dismal experiences of the township’s recent capital projects suggests not. And this project is supposed to make money. When was the last time a government project made any money?
When this garage project fails, will any of them suffer a financial loss? If, against historical precedent, it succeeds, which of them will receive the profits? Where is the personal motivation for any one of them to make this project a success, to put in more time and effort than the others? Hiring a management company does not solve the problem.
Success at being a mayor or council member or public employee does not automatically qualify anyone as an entrepreneur or top executive. Within the past two months, I have had a personal experience as a secured creditor in a sheriff’s sale of a foreclosed property in a neighboring county. The winning bidder was a successful retired county administrator who thought he was going to be a real estate tycoon. He went ahead and paid the deposit on the property despite a warning from me that it was a risky investment. He has since lost his more than $10,000 deposit because he did not have the skill or experience to properly manage this different type of situation.
It is easy for a person successful in one field to believe that he can be successful in all fields. This is especially true if he is surrounded by others who stand to make money by convincing him that he can. Like the tailors who were paid to sew the emperor’s new clothes, any number of service professionals, including architects, planners, attorneys and contractors, are ready to charmingly and authoritatively persuade him of the benefits of the project from which they, not he, will earn a living.
I would be far less skeptical of this project if the land were sold to an experienced entrepreneur who would risk his own money (as well as deposit with the borough a more substantial construction performance bond), leaving the borough to do what it does well, collect taxes on the property. The fact that no entrepreneur has offered to do so says to me that this project cannot be profitable even with competent experienced management.
When this project fails to meet its goals, the only notice we residents will receive is an increasing tax burden, the only public admission of failure that local governments make. The actual financial results will probably be distributed among several accounts on the unaudited balance sheets, as they usually are in failed state capitalism projects.
And if anyone tries to hold them accountable, our elected representatives, if pressed, will blame the reces-sion, which is now projected by Warren Buffett to last eight years.
Ronald C. Nielsen
Humbert Street
Princeton
Keep PHS green
for whole community
To the editor:
I recently wrote to the Princeton Regional Board of Education, offering perspectives on green space and parking at Princeton High School, and whether there should be expanded on-campus parking for students.
1) Decisions on the tradeoff between building parking spots versus preserving and enhancing green space at the high school must consider who benefits and who pays. The beneficiaries of on-campus parking are the few students who park on-campus and few neighbors who dislike students parking on "their" streets. The beneficiaries of green space are the entire student body (including those who drive), who need playing fields for gym and after-school sports and who benefit from trees, plantings and other natural amenities; the entire community, whose quality of life is improved by protecting green space (even those who don’t like cars parked on the streets); and the whole planet, since reduced fossil-fuel use reduces greenhouse gases.
In sum, on-campus parking benefits a few individuals, while green space benefits everyone.
2) One or two neighbors complain that students who park on the streets engage in anti-social activities. It’s my impression that most student parkers are well-behaved and welcomed by most neighbors. Moreover, students who use their cars for activities that are prohibited on school grounds probably won’t park their cars on campus anyway, and will remain on the streets. More on-campus parking is not the answer.
3) Streets are for cars, moving and parked, and belong to the public. Homeowners who want "their" curbsides free of parked cars want to privatize one form of public space (the street in front of their homes) and degrade other public space (by paving green areas). These individuals are entitled to pursue their self-interest, but I hope that our elected representatives will keep the larger public interest in mind.
4) Will higher enrollments require more parking? I suggest that more students will require more green space, not more pavement.
5) Staff parking is different. But the board pledged recently to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all sources. Financial bonuses to staffers who forgo on-campus parking spots, and other incentives for car pooling, public transportation and human-powered locomotion should be instituted.
6) Bicycling should be a preferred way to get to school. But, as one board member pointed out, Princeton is not bike-friendly. We should not throw up our hands, but insist that the township and borough make Princeton safe for bicyclists. Riders can also join the Critical Mass rides at Palmer Square, 6 p.m. on the last Friday of each month. Biking should be a favored, safe option for everyone.
7) As long as we import students from Cranbury into our overburdened community, we should insist that they arrive with the least adverse impact. Students living 10 miles away can’t be expected to walk or ride bikes. Bus service is clearly the best mode. But it has to be scheduled favorably. If that’s not the case, weshould not respond by building bigger parking lots. Moreover, I hope the board will review bus service within the Princetons, and consider improvements so more students ride buses rather than drive.
Dan Preston
Moore Street
Princeton
Humans must learn
to live with deer
To the editor:
In his Aug. 14 letter to the editor, Ed Rummel states that although Essex County is using red roadside wildlife warning reflectors, he still saw two deer up ahead in the middle of the road as he approached with his car at night.
When headlights reflect off roadside wildlife warning reflectors (whether the reflectors are red or white), a wall of light is created on the side of the road. This wall of light deters roadside deer, and other animals, from entering the road until vehicles pass.
In addition to installation of roadside wildlife warning reflectors, towns should clear roadside brush way back for better visibility, road lighting should be adequate and speed limits should be enforced. This multi-step approach will dramatically reduce vehicle-deer collisions day and night.
Mr. Rummel said the deer who were already in the road froze in his headlights. If a deer or other animal freezes in front of your car, slow down, turn your headlights on and off or blow your horn.
The only way to solve human-deer problems is to learn to live with wildlife by modifying our own human behavior. Although Mr. Rummel and the Princeton Township Committee think that killing deer is the only solution, we now know, from years of experience, that killing deer only makes matters worse by increasing deer-auto accidents, and by increasing the fertility rate of the surviving deer.
Jane Miller
Bayard Lane
Princeton
Real neighborhood
merits preservation
To the editor:
Having many reasons to visit the Princeton area, I discovered Berrien City originally by making a right when I should have made a left. My first impression was that I was in a "neighborhood," a community where I saw neighbors talking to one another, children playing and homes that were lovely and cared for. My thought was this how neighborhoods used to be, yet for the lucky folks in Berrien City this is how it is for them today.
I don’t disagree with progress but I do take offense that the integrity of this neighborhood will be destroyed in the name of pushing more cars through so that those very cars can get to neighborhoods that will never have the close-knit community structure that Berrien City has. I have to believe that there is a less disruptive solution than the current proposal.
Caren Lee Michaelson
Arch Street
Philadelphia
Special article on
special community
To the editor:
Thank you for your article on the special community of Berrien (The Packet, Aug. 31).
When I moved to Princeton several years ago I was horrified by the seemingly endless housing developments that spread out with no sense of either individual style or community. What a relief to learn that there are still genuine communities with diverse architectures and a sense of collective history and that they are right here in our collective back yard.
I hope that the neighborhood will be preserved, and that the area around Princeton Junction will develop sensibly. What a terrible loss it would be to see this community paved under and become another green exit sign off Route 1. Instead, I am already imagining a time when I can take the train to the junction and walk to a community arts center.
Craig Dworkin
Jackson Street
Trenton
Rural road shouldn’t
bear heavy traffic
To the editor:
A recent report from the National Traffic Safety Board states that the death toll on rural roads now exceeds that of major highways. The reason? More drivers commute to jobs in rural areas and others use rural roads as bypasses around congested highways.
Has the Montgomery Planning Board considered this as it approves major expansions at the Bloomberg headquarters and other commercial developments in the southern end of town? Obviously not, because the board plans to create a bypass for the already congested Route 206 and 518 intersection by re-opening Opossum Road.
Opossum Road is officially designated as a rural road. It has all the hills, curves, roadside trees and hidden driveways that one would expect on a road designed for light use.
With Bloomberg at one end of Opossum Road and Route 206 at the other (and Squibb-Convatec in the middle), it sounds like Montgomery could be adding to the NTSB statistics very soon.
A decision to re-open this rural road as a primary bypass, in light of its obvious hazards, would subject the township to the lawsuits of the accident victims. The tiny tax savings from an expanded corporate base could be blown out by court costs.
Towns such as Montgomery were not designed to host major corporations. Why not ask the large corporations to move to nearby Trenton? Our major cities were designed to handle major corporations. Smaller companies, which would be more manageable in size, would quickly fill the space vacated by the Bloombergs of this world.
Mark Welch
Honeysuckle Court
Montgomery
Response to letter
misses the point
To the editor:
I read Wesley Conner’s response to my letter (The Packet, Aug. 28) with amusement. It is clear that Mr. Conner has missed the point of my message. Let me clarify.
I stated that our schools are not the best schools in the state and that the politicians stop spinning this about a very good school system. Mr. Conner recognizes this when he states that "our schools should be the best." Now let’s examine what makes schools to be the best or among the best. Do the taxpayers have to lay out $1 million for a swimming pool, or $74 million for one high school, when other communities are committing about one half of that? It is the quality of education Mr. Conner at affordable prices that is the message that we are sending to our elected officials. The message is not "no more schools" it is all needed schools and staffing at affordable cost.
One does not go to 21 Club to dine on credit. If one were to go the credit route, one goes to the neighborhood restaurant providing some nourishment, reasonably good atmosphere at reasonable prices.
The Montgomery Township politicians on the one hand are telling us that they have lowered the municipal tax rate this year. It is the Board of Education portion of taxes and the assessed valuations on properties that have gone up and therefore overall taxes. They will also tell you that the township is mandated by the state to utilize 100 percent assessed valuation for uniformity across the state. Let me tell you what they don’t have answers for.
Lowering the municipal portion of property taxes by three cents is a mockery when one considers the overall average increase of in excess of 13 percent in assessment base.
The Township Committee is charged with the responsibility to review the Board of Education budget and make appropriate adjustments. The Township Committee should review the Board of Education’s budget for cost, desirability of facilities and affordability.
As to Mr. Conner encouraging me to consider a move to any of the lovely area neighborhoods that I have mentioned, let me remind him that these neighboring communities run some of the best schools in the state. These schools are certified as such by the state, and their numbers are increasing as I write.
If it pleases Mr. Conner to continue to deal with his long commute and to stop by to sleep over, and belly up to the undesirable tax increases imposed on us, then he is free to do so. I am not; neither are the majority of the residents of this township of 14,000.
Aziz Khan
Bergen Court
Montgomery
All reasonable options
should be considered
To the editor:
I am writing in response to your Aug. 31 editorial regarding the configuration issues in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District. Clearly, you have not been reading your own reporting regarding the decision.
The West Windsor-Plainsboro superintendent of schools, Dr. John Fitzsimons, is the one who re-opened the configuration debate. He did so by changing the configuration of the district once again, and making our K-3/4-5 district into a K-2/3-5, K-3/4-5 district.
Last October, Dr. Fitzsimons accepted a mandate from the school board to develop a plan to house the overflow of K-3 students he created by his configuration proposal and the conversion of the Village School into a second Upper Elementary School. When directed by the board to present his solution, Dr. Fitzsimons chose to present a totally new configuration: housing half of the third-grade students in the district at the Plainsboro UES, and housing the rest of the third-graders in the existing K-3 lower elementary schools.
As equity has long been a goal of our school system, and as the K-2/3-5, K-3/4-5 proposal does not reasonably allow for an equitable education for our students, the current board had no real option other than to re-open the entire question, and re-examine all configuration options.
If, after all, our creative, talented administration can develop no more equitable solution under our current configuration, do we not owe it to our communities and especially our students to look at all possible, reasonable options? Since all the students can have classrooms and desks under the K-5 configuration, should we not include that in our consideration? I believe we must.
Vicki Hahn
Clarendon Court
West Windsor
Pay more attention
to High School South
To the editor:
I would like to voice my opposition and that of my board to revisiting the grade organization system. For us, the issue isn’t whether K-3 or K-5 is superior educationally or socially. The board and the staff have spent years agonizing over this issue. And it looks like it’s being opened up yet again.
While the board’s attention is repeatedly diverted to revisiting this issue, the needs of the more than 1,400 students now enrolled at High School South are being overlooked. When the decision was made to have two separate four-year high schools, we were promised that efforts would be made to improve our physical plant so that we could be reasonably equal with North. That hasn’t happened. What’s worse, all the attention being devoted to grade reorganization for younger children means that serious efforts at long-range planning for our needs have scarcely been started.
We need major improvements and expansion for our theater, music and art facilities. The state has increased graduation requirements in the arts, but we don’t have adequate studio and performance space. The district purchased equipment for TV production classes, but there’s no place to use it. Our theater lacks sufficient stage space and has almost no storage room for props and scenery. We don’t have the state-of-the-art sound and lighting equipment available at North. The seats squeak, disrupting performances and speakers. The seats are so uncomfortable that parents and students dread sitting through plays, meetings or awards ceremonies that can run for two or three hours. Not surprisingly, our award-winning orchestra and choir give their concerts at North.
We still have open classrooms where it is difficult for students to concentrate, although it’s certainly better than when we had over 1,900 students in the building. South lacks a truly functional auxiliary gym. We have awful restrooms that haven’t been renovated since the school opened. Ask the kids. Ask their parents. Ask visitors who come to South for school events. Should we still be arguing about putting in bathrooms for kindergartners at the UES? Or equipping orchestras at every primary school?
Yes, the board has paid attention to maintenance needs and safety issues at South. But we need a long-term vision and a plan for major physical changes. As long as the superintendent, the board and the staff are focused on K-5 vs. K-3, High School South will never get the planning and financial attention it needs.
Deborah Brett
President, PTSA
West Windsor-Plainsboro
High School South
Sherman Court
Plainsboro
Decision must have
community input
To the editor:
The editorial on Aug. 31 cannot be more wrong. There is no K-3/4-5 on the table. As of now, what is on the table is a K-2/3 and 4-5 where 50 percent of the third-graders will be housed at the Upper Elementary School.
The October 2000 vote was an overturning of the 1996 referendum . In October 2000, the Board of Education voted for K-3/4-5 configuration. Today, the administration is talking about implementing a K-2/3, 4-5 configuration system; 300 students of third grade amounts to half of the third grade. Due to the above, a community member has a 50 percent chance of having a kid in the UES as a third-grader.
Give the details of the plan. Let the voters determine if the 1996 referendum should be overturned.
Remember, most of us will be here for awhile. The administration will change; the last six years has seen five superintendents in acting, interim or full-time capacity. That is a reality, but we are still here combating open space classrooms, and some other buildings that are questionable planning now.
My contention is that whatever configuration we come to, it must be made with community input. More the reason since the 1996 referendum was for a K-5 configuration.
I do not mind changing the 1996 referendum vote provided strong data is placed for the Board of Education and the community to examine. Here is a possible composition of the committee:
Two board members, one administrator, one architect (builder), two from West Windsor community (drawn at random, all applicants’ names in hat and drawn at a meeting), two from Plainsboro community (drawn at random, all applicants’ names in hat and drawn at a meeting).
It is far better to have some inconvenience now and have a truly open discussion and then a decision made than to harbor ill feelings for later. We all do communicate, but do we communicate effectively?
D.K. Weerasinghe
Madison Drive
Plainsboro
Making K-5 ‘affordable’
comes at kids’ expense
To the editor:
The West Windsor-Plainsboro Board of Education voted to re-open the debate about grade configuration, choosing to rehash the facts and figures regarding K-3/4-5 vs. K-5. It seems now that, with newly seated members, there may be a majority to overturn the previous board’s decision to retain the current K-3, 4-5 system which has worked so well in our district.
At a recent board meeting, several board members suggested that the administration look at a so-called "minimum cost" option for K-5. Knowing that K-5 would certainly cost more to operate every year if we want to maintain the level of service and excellence of programs, board members who support K-5 have suggested ways of making it more affordable. These include:
*not putting bathrooms in first-grade classrooms at Upper Elementary School and Town Center;
*not converting tiny classrooms at UES into larger ones for first grade;
*increasing class size for special education students to the maximum the state will allow; and
*creating a huge elementary school with 1,100 + students.
In this "minimum cost" scenario, it is certain that our excellent music programs and facilities would be diminished.
The same board members who have argued that smaller "neighborhood" schools are better are perfectly OK with sending our children to a huge K-5 school with smaller classrooms and no bathrooms. Those who dismissed the administration’s suggestion that overflow third-graders could go to UES a year early have no problem with sending our children to UES starting in kindergarten.
After dismissing the suggestion that class size could be increased by one to accommodate all third-graders in K-3 schools, they feel it’s OK to dramatically increase class size for special education students. While calling for more G & T opportunities, they are willing to dismantle the excellent existing enrichment (or G & T) music program.
West Windsor parents, wake up! Call the central office and get a copy of the proposed redistricting lists that were distributed last October. They are public information. Even if the redistricting isn’t final, it is a fact that many West Windsor children (assigned to the UES under a K-5 plan), will never attend a school in their own community. Is that fair?
Board members who claim they are listening to the public now need to hear from the rest of us. It is time that parents of West Windsor children who will be assigned to UES for K-5, parents of the 30 percent of our district’s children who currently benefit from the G & T program in instrumental music, and parents of special education students let the board know that we are also their constituents. We will not tolerate a configuration that discriminates against our children. Check the redistricting lists. Attend public meetings. Listen carefully to the suggestions by board members on how to save money to make K-5 affordable. You will then see who and what their suggestions target and become outraged enough to speak out or write a letter to the editor.
Carol N. Major
Woodbury Court
West Windsor
Board shouldn’t take
the easy way out
To the editor:
Your Aug. 31 editorial urges the West Windsor-Plainsboro community to just move on and not reopen debate on the K-5 school configuration. I would suggest that it is not appropriate to simply "move on" from a decision made by the Board of Education last year based on inaccurate (some would say misleading) information about costs and capacities, and which left for later decision the use of 300-400 "empty" seats at the Upper Elementary School.
How does the district move forward until the Board of Education figures out what students will be in those empty seats? If that issue is still open for discussion, why not consider all options, including the K-5 option?
For the record, the administration’s recommendation was not to keep the current configuration, but rather to convert one current K-3 school into a 4-5 school, which resulted in the excess 4-5 space and an inadequate amount of K-3 space. That plan is hardly status quo. The fact is that the debate is not really philosophical the superintendent himself has repeatedly stated that he would prefer a K-5 configuration. Rather, the debate is entirely financial. Those board members who voted for the K-3/4-5 configuration did so (reluctantly) based on the information provided by the administration that a K-5 configuration would be too expensive. If that information wasn’t accurate, and especially if the K-3/4-5 plan turns out to have major structural problems, then it is appropriate to review the decision.
I certainly agree that a final decision must be made soon so that we can get on with the difficult process of redistricting, but we need to first make the basic decision of which grades (and how many of each) will be in each school. I applaud the board for sticking with this process rather than taking the easy way out, as the Packet editorial suggested.
Kevin G. Chapman
Cartwright Drive
West Windsor

