Tell them how you feel!
To the editor and my fellow residents of Hopewell Borough:
As most of you know by now there will not be a question on the November ballot, but it does not stop there.
We are going to demand a public meeting to let this council to stop making plans for a new building. We were told nothing about having this meeting prior to having a question on the ballot. In fact at the meeting about St. Michael’s it was brought up and the mayor said publicly it was not necessary.
Now if he said this where do you go from there? As you know it was a packed house that night.
I ask everyone who takes the time to read this to call everyone on council and Mayor George Padgett (466-9298). Council: Tom Dallessio (466-3603), Alice Huston (466-2013), David Knights (466-4425), David Mackie (466-1577), David Nettles (466-4623) and Henry Wittman (466-9302). All these phone numbers are public on the Guide to Municipal Services available to everyone at the Borough Hall. Tell them how you feel.
The next meeting will be Oct. 1 at 7:30 p.m. Show your support. They all can be remembered when they are running for re-election.
Sue Silvestri, Hopewell
‘Poor public policy implemented in grossly inept manner’
To the editor:
The recent escape from Mercer County Correctional Center and the subsequent manhunt reveal just how ill-equipped the former workhouse is to house violent criminals and how hollow were the assurances offered regarding the safety of the facility.
The community alert system was exposed as a joke some residents were not notified and those who did get that chilling message at 2 a.m. discovered later that the calls were largely meaningless due to the extraordinary time that had elapsed. The authorities have remained mum about what happened for obvious reasons. If not for the free press we might never know what a farce had occurred.
Those who insisted that it was an ill-conceived scheme to close one facility and create a maximum security prison in a once-quiet corner of Hopewell Township appear now to be quite correct. The scheme, hatched by our county executive, Robert D. Prunetti, was carried out in secrecy without consultation with Township residents or officials, without any meaningful study, and certainly without good judgment or common sense. Several years ago, a county effort to add yet more prisoners was wisely thwarted by a majority of the Township Committee.
As a neighbor remarked to us last week, "The escapee seems to be much smarter than the people in charge." The administration will no doubt blame an underpaid guard for a lapse in security. However, the responsibility lies with those who created this mess.
The questions of how and where we house our violent prisoners must be revisited. This is poor public policy that has been implemented in a grossly inept manner.
Alexander Greenwood, Kathryn Federici Greenwood, Titusville
‘Political expediency over public safety’
To the editor:
While it is a relief to know that the convicted killer who slipped away from the Mercer County Corrections Center on Aug. 30 is now securely behind bars in a state facility, it is not very reassuring to be told by County Executive Robert Prunetti that security protocols at the center are more than adequate. Obviously, there was some very serious bumbling at the prison that morning that could not have been compensated for by all the razor wire in the world.
What good are the procedures in the manual if people are inadequately trained to follow them, if supervision from the top is lax, if overcrowding taxes the corrections personnel, or if the facility itself is pressed to its limits?
It has been three years now since the county closed the Detention Center in Trenton and, without so much as a courtesy call to the host community, moved maximum security prisoners to Hopewell Township. Township officials, both Republican and Democrat, have repeatedly objected to the move and demanded full accountability. Their efforts to establish an open dialog with the county executive on prison matters have been met consistently with hostility and contempt. Mr. Prunetti has been invited to attend township meetings to discuss the prison with the public, but stated that he would do so only with the condition that all questions be submitted in advance in writing.
It is no comfort to know that political expediency takes priority over public safety. In the fall of 1999, in a flimsy attempt to deflect criticism and snatch a political opportunity, Mr. Prunetti arranged an intimate meeting at the Titusville home of Republican Chairman Bill Cane to discuss prison issues with a handful of residents. This was hardly a public venue. It was no coincidence that the meeting, which was followed by a press release, was held in the midst of a rancorous and highly visible campaign for two positions on the Hopewell Township Committee. The outcome of that meeting was creation a "Citizens Advisory Committee." Among the appointees was none other than one of the Republican candidates in that election. Patrick Cane, a candidate in this year’s race, has stated that he was present at that meeting. Perhaps he would like to offer the beleaguered neighbors of the Corrections Center an update on the "Advisory Committee’s" activities and accomplishments over the past two years.
Throughout the disclosure of the shocking circumstances surrounding the escape, the posture of county officials has been simply defensive and condescending. It would have been so much better to say, "We are sorry for putting you through this." The most intelligent move and the most considerate comment so far has come from Hopewell Township Police Lt. George Meyer, who apologized for frightening residents when it was clear that the danger was long gone. If ever a person was pressed between a rock and a hard place it was this officer, who had to choose between common sense and an order from the prison warden to sound a ridiculously belated alarm. It is unfortunate that he was forced to choose the latter.
Patricia P. Sziber, Titusville

