Letters to the Editor, April 22

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, April 22

By:
University follows collaborative process
To the editor:
   
As director of community and state affairs for Princeton University, I would like to respond to comments made in a letter from a Sayre Drive resident (The Packet, April 1) regarding aspects of the Princeton Forrestal Center development.
   Having undertaken the development of Princeton Forrestal Center 29 years ago, Princeton University has been an exceptionally responsible developer of the Route 1 corridor by preserving over 500 acres in the region as open space, investing $50 million in infrastructure improvements and being generously responsive to the needs of the community in the areas of affordable housing, transit, public safety and recreation.
   Specific to the issues raised in the letter about traffic and roads, the university has invested nearly $40 million in municipal, county and state road improvements since the first approvals were granted for development in 1974. The university built College Road East between 1974 and 1983, and today it is a municipal road. Scudders Mill Road, a county roadway, was built by several parties with Princeton University contributing the largest share. In 1989, the university designed, engineered and constructed the College Road overpass at a cost of over $20 million. Additionally, the university contributed over 40 acres of land for the overpass. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation also participated in the funding.
   Plainsboro is the only municipality in the Route 1 corridor to have only grade-separated interchanges — thanks to Princeton University taking the initiative.
   In December 2001, Campus Road was open to the public. This $6 million road was paid for by Princeton University. The purpose of Campus Road is to carry the bulk of the existing and future traffic away from the Sayre Drive underpass. Prior to the opening of the road, the employees of Plasma Physics Lab could only access Route 1 southbound via the Sayre Drive underpass. Today there are many lab employees who can get to work without ever using Sayre Drive in either the morning or the afternoon.
   In October 2001, the Planning Board of Plainsboro Township approved five buildings with a total of 800,000 square feet on Campus North. The first three buildings on Campus North have access directly to Campus Road. Even before the first building is occupied, Stellarator Drive (owned and maintained by the university) will become one-way northbound. This means that employees will not be able to use Sayre Drive in the afternoon to get to southbound Route 1. Making this roadway one-way was a voluntary action by Princeton University.
   Also, the university is obligated to design, engineer and build an extension of Campus Road to College Road East — even before half of the 2.1 million square feet is developed on Forrestal Campus.
   The proposed design for the Sayre Drive intersection, as well as the more general traffic plan, was the result of an extremely collaborative process among municipal and state officials as well as the board of the Princeton Landing Homeowners Association.
Pam Hersh
Director
Community and State Affairs
Princeton University
Princeton
Failure to vote is threat to democracy
To the editor:
   
As noted in the Packet editorial of April 18, over 90 percent of registered voters failed to vote in Princeton’s recent school election.
   The right to vote is a privilege, and casting one’s vote is a tribute to that right. I also believe that democracy works best when most eligible voters do, in fact, vote. Finally, I fear that widespread loss of interest in voting poses a threat to our democratic traditions and institutions.
   I shudder to think that a large majority of registered voters might consider these beliefs to be mere foibles.
Walter Emmerich
Dodds Lane
Princeton
Review is no place for editorializing
To the editor:
   
Matt Smith’s article on the play "Children of Fatima" is offensive (Time Off, April 10).
   Mr. Smith writes that a playwright uses humor to "broach the often-nonsensical hypocrisy of the Catholic Church." Not only does this reveal the prejudice of the author; this is needless editorializing, and the inclusion of such an offhand jab in a theater review is highly unprofessional.
Joseph De Feo
Policy Analyst
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
Seventh Avenue
New York, N.Y.
Voters, supporters thanked by candidate
To the editor:
   
As a candidate for election to the West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional Board of Education, I have had the opportunity to share my thoughts on issues I feel are important to the residents of West Windsor and Plainsboro.
   I would like to take this time to thank those that voted for me, and who believed in my commitment to work to improve our school district for all residents.
   I would also like to express my gratitude to those individuals who assisted my candidacy by sharing with me their energy and trust. Their experience with, and thoughts regarding the school district and its Board of Education were invaluable.
Michael Newman
Hamilton Drive
West Windsor
Access to health care is everybody’s concern
To the editor:
   
The budget plan proposed by Gov. James E. McGreevey contains sizable cuts to New Jersey’s Medicaid and FamilyCare programs. If these cuts go through, tens of thousands of parents will lose medical coverage and many more adults will have benefits reduced and costs increased. The plan includes the following:
   • Termination of FamilyCare coverage (state funding for health insurance premiums for low-income people) for all parents with incomes over 133 percent of the Federal Poverty Guideline. An estimated 63,000 parents who now have health insurance will be cut from the program, adding to the many thousands who have already been denied or terminated from coverage.
   • Elimination of coverage for dental and chiropractic services for adults on Medicaid.
   • Elimination of coverage for medical equipment and long-term care for parents and other adults.
   • Added co-payments for adults. At a minimum, this would affect all adults receiving welfare who do not have children and all Medicaid recipients not in an HMO, including all SSI recipients with psychiatric disabilities. HMO participants could be subject to these co-payments as well. These co-pays will be required for all prescriptions, out-patient hospital services and "non-emergency" emergency room visits.
   • Termination of FamilyCare coverage to adult legal immigrants — those who are lawfully present in the United States but who are ineligible for Medicaid due to their date of entry.
   Access to health care is everybody’s concern, everybody’s need. People without access to health care are forced to take risks with their health that ultimately adversely affect all of us. The uninsured are left with no recourse other than seeking health care in hospital emergency rooms, the most costly care.
   Forced to neglect their health, the uninsured often suffer from chronic illness that could have been treated more economically if caught earlier, or perhaps prevented entirely. These increased health care costs are passed on to all of us, through our taxes, through higher per-diem rates charged by hospitals in order to recover their losses from treating the uninsured, and through our higher insurance premiums
   Being uninsured can also have devastating financial consequences for a family, as medical bills are a factor in nearly half of all personal bankruptcy filings. All it takes is one major health problem or trauma, such as a car accident, to shake the economic stability of an uninsured family.
   It is certainly more compassionate and cost-effective to provide preventive, comprehensive and consistent health care, which would help to maintain healthy lifestyles rather than treating chronic illness. To this end, we urge the governor and the Legislature to restore funding to NJ FamilyCare and to withdraw proposals that would inflict co-payments on the state’s poorest citizens.
   We must not cut FamilyCare and Medicaid. It is wrong to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the disabled.
Marlene Lao-Collins
Associate Director of Social Concerns
New Jersey Catholic Conference
North Warren Street
Trenton
Area food bank hit by shortage
To the editor:
   
The National Association of Letter Carriers Food Drive occurs as routinely as daffodils bloom and allergy season begins. But this year is different.
   This year, the NALC Food Drive on May 10 isn’t just a nice bit of volunteer work by the letter carriers. This time, the NALC Food Drive is crucial to our ability as a regional food bank to provide emergency food to hungry children and families.
   Food pantries and soup kitchens in New Jersey are receiving less emergency food from the federal government, creating an increased need for food donations throughout the summer, according to area anti-hunger advocates. Mercer Street Friends Food Cooperative — which provides food for 15,000 people each month — is receiving half its usual shipment of federal emergency food.
   Shipments of U.S. Department of Agriculture commodities have dwindled due to delayed federal funding. Anti-hunger advocates worked with federal lawmakers to persuade the USDA to restore some commodities funding — but the delay has prevented the timely purchase of bonus commodities. The food shortage will continue through the summer, according to the New Jersey Department of Agriculture.
   This shortage of commodities comes at a time of year when families depend even more heavily on food banks and pantries. Summer traditionally is a challenge for families struggling to meet their children’s nutritional needs because school lunch and breakfast programs are not available.
   For these reasons, I hope you will join your neighbors who support the annual NALC Food Drive. We encourage everyone who is able to participate because we know that this time, this year, those donations will make the difference for hungry Mercer County families.
Phyllis Stoolmacher
Director
Mercer Street Friends Food Cooperative
Mercer Street
Trenton