ENDORSEMENTS: In Borough, nod to O’Neill, Martindell

PACKET EDITORIAL, Oct. 16

By: Packet Editorial
   If there were only one seat available on the Princeton Borough Council in this year’s election, the choice for voters would be easy.
   Joseph O’Neill is a thoughtful, articulate, no-nonsense public servant whose presence on the Borough Council adds vision to a governing body that all too often gets caught up in its own minutiae. In his brief tenure on the council (he was appointed in August to fill the seat vacated by Ryan Stark Lilienthal), Mr. O’Neill already has demonstrated that he has little patience for the kind of hemming and hawing that takes up all too much of the Borough Council’s valuable time.
   This preference for decision-making over speech-making comes as no surprise to those who watched Mr. O’Neill in action during his 16 years on the Regional Planning Board of Princeton. Though we did not always agree with Mr. O’Neill’s votes — we disagreed, for example, with his vote against The Arts Council’s expansion proposal — we never saw him shy away from controversy or fail to make his feelings known. We also admired his keen insight into issues, and his ability to take the long view; while others on the Planning Board were busy counting trees, Mr. O’Neill could always be counted on to remind them about the condition of the forest.
   There is a second seat on the Borough Council at stake in the Nov. 6 election, and the choice here is considerably more difficult. Democratic incumbent Roger Martindell, a 12-year veteran, is being challenged by Republican Michael Carnevale, a lawyer, and Princeton University student Steven Abt, who is running as an independent for the stated purpose of increasing student interest in the electoral process.
   We would liken Mr. Martindell’s behavior as a borough councilman to Winston Churchill’s famous description of the Soviet Union: "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." To listen to him speak, Mr. Martindell is intelligent, substantive and progressive; to watch him in action on the council, he is inflexible, reactionary and obstructionist. He casts the lone negative vote so often that he has become known as the "Dr. No" of the Borough Council.
   Sometimes, he votes no out of obvious conviction, and with that we have no quarrel. Although we don’t share his opposition to a proposed garage and related development in the borough’s central business district, we understand and respect his position on this issue. What we will never understand, however, is Mr. Martindell’s insistence on casting the only vote against the agreement allowing the Princeton Public Library to move ahead with construction — because he hadn’t received a written report he requested from the borough engineer. Or his lone vote against settling lawsuit regarding expansion of affordable senior housing at Elm Court because he disagreed with a provision regarding open-space preservation. Or his vote against putting an open-space tax on the ballot because he thought the question should be presented by a community group rather than the Borough Council.
   In these and other instances, one gets the impression that Mr. Martindell votes no just to be ornery, not to promote good public policy.
   His Republican opponent, Mr. Carnevale, is new to borough politics. He makes a good first impression, taking open-minded positions on a downtown garage, ordinances dealing with overcrowding in rental units and underage drinking at the Princeton University eating clubs and other current issues. He is not afraid to say "I don’t know" when asked about matters with which he is not familiar — which is at once disarmingly honest and more than a little unnerving. Voters, after all, expect candidates for local office to be conversant with all the issues of the day. Mr. Carnevale may be a quick study, but neither he nor Mr. Abt displays mastery of the broad range of pressing issues facing the borough, from redevelopment to affordable housing to traffic to tax-exempt properties to the borough’s relationships with Princeton University and Palmer Square.
   In this regard, Mr. Martindell has a clear edge. He possesses both the knowledge and the experience to serve Princeton Borough well and wisely, if he can channel his energies away from provocation toward productivity. We are inclined, despite our reservations, to give him the opportunity — indeed, to challenge him in his next term in office — to put his obvious abilities to more productive use. We endorse Joseph O’Neill and Roger Martindell for Borough Council.