LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, Dec. 24
Sidewalks unnecessary on Snowden Lane
To the editor:
I am distressed to read about the proposed sidewalks for the section of Snowden Lane between Franklin Avenue and Hamilton/Rollingmead. I’ve lived 0.6 miles away on Van Dyke Road, near the Van Dyke/Snowden intersection, for almost 50 years. I walk my dog daily across Snowden, and commute along this stretch of Snowden as children go to school.
The proposed sidewalks won’t make it safer for children walking to the Littlebrook School. Children coming from neighborhoods on the western side (Franklin, Leabrook and Braeburn) take the shortest route via the side-walked section of Snowden between Franklin and Overbrook, then straight to school via Abernathy. Those coming from Nassau Street or Hamilton cross Snowden onto Rollingmead to get to Littlebrook. Teenagers attending PHS go the opposite way. Both routes bypass this contested section. The only children for whom the sidewalk would be useful are the residents’ children, and none of their parents want it.
For pedestrians wishing to get to Nassau Street, the safer, convenient alternative is via the parallel streets of Leavitt Lane one short block over and Harriet Drive. Both streets are wide and traffic-free. The Harriet/Nassau intersection is safer and closer to downtown than the doubly blind Snowden/Nassau intersection, whose traffic light is only briefly green. This spares pedestrians being struck by motorists who routinely run the stop signs crossing Snowden from Hamilton onto Rollingmead.
This narrow stretch of modest houses is unsuited to sidewalks. Sidewalks would consume 25 to 30 percent of the diminutive front yards, destroy all trees lining the southwest side of the road and necessitate a retaining wall on one lot. When I drive home from work on a fall or winter night, I relish passing through this section a tunnel of golden or snowy maple boughs arching overhead past perky houses with lamps aglow. My descent over Harry’s Brook into an ascending corridor of spruces with Windy Top in the distance reassures me that all is not yet the tract housing of the Windsors, nor the estates of Brooks Bend.
Sidewalks aren’t problem-free. As a dog walker and former marathoner, I see the changes wrought by the new Smoyer Park bike path to Van Dyke. Motorists drive faster. Trees with poison ivy lie fallen and uncut on the sidewalks for weeks. Ice flows and the failure to clear snowplow heaps make our sidewalk unusable much of the winter.
Letters from outsiders exaggerate the hazards. One author wrote about her children having to "trudge through tall grass" in front of her house. She has a lane that, with a little pruning, could safely bypass her entire stretch of Snowden bringing the children out shortly before the walkway on Harry’s Brook bridge, a short distance from the sidewalk at Maybury Hill.
Another writer complains about threatened "lawsuits" from the Snowden homeowners. These are not the costly suits of the past brought by developers. Rather they are a last "no-trench" effort by the residents to preserve their neighborhood.
My mother, Elizabeth (Duffy) Hutter, a former member of Princeton Township Committee, the Planning Board and the Friends of Princeton Open Space, now not well enough to express herself, would be disturbed to hear of the changes and conformity being foisted upon Snowden.
Fairfax Hutter
Van Dyke Road
Princeton
Teachers pleased with new contract
To the editor:
We, the co-presidents of the Princeton Regional Education Association, would like to thank interim Superintendent Rich Marasco, Board of Education President Ann Burns, Assistant Superintendent Lew Goldstein as well as the rest of the board’s negotiations team for working with us to reach a contract agreement prior to the expiration of our current contract.
We would also like to thank the PREA negotiations team and our membership for their support.
We are pleased with the settlement and the newly established climate of respect between both parties.
Joanne Ryan
Jo Szabaga
Suzanne Thompson
Co-presidents
Princeton Regional Education Association
Princeton
Budget discussions not exactly ‘early’
To the editor:
Re. "Borough tries early to rein in a tax hike" (The Packet, Dec. 17), just 17 days before the start of the fiscal year, only in Princeton could this first look at 2005 expenses be called "early."
The lesson from last year’s whopping tax increase was that you can’t start cutting expenses in April or May and have a significant impact on the tax rate. If the Borough Council needs to reduce staffing to avoid a tax increase, it needs to make reductions now and not months after the year has already started. If Councilwoman Wendy Benchley wants to examine the effect that cutting personnel would have on services, she should be finishing her evaluation at this point rather than talking about beginning it.
We’ll know the Borough Council is serious about holding the line on expenses when it asks the borough administrator for a draft budget to consider in October or November rather than Dec. 14, just 17 days before it takes effect.
Daniel Patrick O’Connell
Patton Avenue
Princeton
Holiday Fund helps the needy
To the editor:
We are at the end of a long collaboration between the Town Topics Christmas Fund and Family and Children’s Services. I would like to thank the past and present management of the Town Topics for allowing us the privilege of serving as the administrator of the Christmas Fund. The generous contributions from people in this community were collected by the Town Topics and were then distributed by Family and Children’s Services to our less fortunate neighbors who had financial emergencies.
Since the inception of the Fund, Family and Children’s Services was asked to meet with persons requesting help and to give financial aid according to their needs. The money was used to help families with food, utility bills, college books and work clothes. Your donations went toward day care, prescriptions, camp scholarships and more. Over the past five years, more than 600 families and individuals have sought help when there was nowhere else to turn. We saw many successes and our staff and volunteers were gratified that we could serve as a pass-through for the funds raised in this community by the Town Topics.
Through the Princeton Holiday Fund, Family and Children’s Services will continue to provide emergency funds to families in our community. Contributions may be sent directly to the Princeton Holiday Fund, c/o Family and Children’s Services, 120 John St., Suite 6, Princeton, NJ 08542. I hope the spirit of giving will continue in Princeton as it has in the past.
Mimi Ballard
Executive Director
Family and Children’s Services of Central New Jersey
John Street
Princeton
Council should stick to local issues
To the editor:
A recent letter (The Packet, Dec. 17), authored by a West Windsor councilman, attacked me for my opposition to a USA PATRIOT Act resolution passed by the West Windsor Council.
He states that I should have reviewed his Web site and then contacted him before opposing it. How pretentious! Who knew that he had a Web site? Who cares? I always thought that the best form of democratic political participation was to publicly state your views, which I did to West Windsor Township Council.
The councilman uses terms such as "disappointed" and "astounded." Let’s also use clueless. Clueless if he believes that this resolution was not a partisan political exercise, fueled by a small, vocal pressure group, and adopted by a council with no competency to make an informed judgment. After all, none of them had read the act.
My constructive criticism was given when I urged the council not to adopt the resolution, giving a goodly number of reasons. In fact, one of my points was added to the resolution, something the councilman would have known if he had bothered to show up for the vote.
My main point was that the council should be addressing the local issues for which they were elected to handle, and not engage in partisan political activity.
Jack Flood
Yeger Road
West Windsor
Actions by government cause embarrassment
To the editor:
House Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas is facing possible indictment for criminal activities related to his political action committee. Many House Republicans have accepted money from political action committees. They have now used a cowardly voice vote to change the rules so that Rep. DeLay can keep his position if he is indicted. I suppose they feel none of us are paying attention and they will not be held accountable for their action.
There have also been recent reports that our legislators in Washington vote on bills that they have not even read. I thought these bodies were supposed to deliberate bills and that one would need to read them in order to do that.
I have been embarrassed by many actions of my government over the last four years and these are just two more examples. Hopefully, those Americans who cast their votes based on "moral" issues will notice and reconsider next time.
Ronald A. LeMahieu
Sequoia Court
West Windsor

