LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, Sept. 8
School district fails to fulfill its promise
To the editor:
In both local papers over the past two weeks, there were articles about the Princeton Regional Board of Education and administration being thrilled at the completion of the major building project at Princeton High School.
We feel that they should taken to task for a project that was not completed and is in violation of the district’s compliance with Title IX and the agreement reached in May 2005.
The Title IX settlement agreement reached between the board and district parents in May 2005 was reported in both local papers. A varsity softball field was to be completed by the start of the 2006 softball season last March 5, and the junior varsity field was to be completed over this past summer.
Currently, the ground has not yet been broken for the varsity softball field and a JV field has an infield and backstop. To add insult to injury, the football team blocking sleds are currently being pushed around the proposed site of the varsity softball infield. So much for equal treatment for women athletes at PHS.
As it stands, the district is still out of Title IX compliance and has not come close to the agreement that was reached back in May 2005. This is insulting to both the girls who have played and currently play softball at PHS and to the parents who worked in good faith with the school district to ensure equal treatment for their daughters under Title IX.
Sandy Kurinsky and Michael Katz
Leabrook Lane
Princeton
After-school programs offered by YMCA
To the editor:
Summer is coming to an end and parents are getting ready to send their children back to school. While some parents will spend the next few weeks stocking up on school supplies, new backpacks and lunch boxes, working parents once again find themselves searching for safe, quality after-school programs to complement and supplement their children’s in-school learning.
Experts agree that school-age children need to be moderately to vigorously active for a minimum of 60 minutes a day. Unfortunately, the problem is extensive since the majority, almost two-thirds of our nation’s youth, is not reaching this goal. Which means that as kids in Mercer and surrounding counties head back to school and to long days of sitting at their desks, it is critically important that we find additional ways for our children to stay active and stimulated during after-school hours.
The Princeton Family YMCA offers a solution. In addition to homework help, a variety of organized sports including fencing and crew, and community service learning projects, the Princeton YMCA offers many fun and stimulating enrichment activities that allow children to experience a wide range of diverse learning opportunities outside the classroom. We focus on developing the whole child through programs that support children’s learning through social, emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual development. The Princeton YMCA aims to build self-esteem and provide the tools youth need to be happy and productive in life.
Enrichment programs for the fall include Creative Capers, which encourages students’ creative imaginations as they develop a sampling of art while learning about different artists and their unique styles, and World Travelers, a music, language, cooking and crafts program utilizing unique facts and activities characteristic of different cultures.
As we send our children back to school this year, let’s help them to strike the right balance between academics, physical recreation and holistic development. And, in doing so, we’ll teach them what they need for a lifetime of health and happiness.
Natasha Schiller
Youth and After School Director
Princeton Family YMCA
Paul Robeson Place
Princeton
Arts Council thanks concert supporters
To the editor:
The Arts Council of Princeton would like to thank everyone for making the Princeton Passport Concert series a success.
Through the collaboration with the Princeton Shopping Center and sponsorship from the Princeton Shopping Center Merchants Association, Princeton-area audiences were entertained by 14 free two-hour concerts throughout the entire summer. Each concert showcased music from different parts of the globe.
We would like to extend a special thank you to Main Street Euro-American Bar and Bistro and PNC Bank for their special contributions to the series. The Arts Council looks forward to participating in next summer’s concert series.
Michael LaRiccia
Program/Public Relations Coordinator
The Arts Council of Princeton
North Harrison Street
Princeton
GOP candidates distort tax issue
To the editor:
It is a fact that municipal taxes in Montgomery have remained flat over the past five years. It is a point of pride that using long-range planning and prudent fiscal decision making we have managed to hold municipal taxes down without reducing services to our residents, even as the number of residents has grown substantially.
Therefore, it was very disappointing to see a recent ad for the Republican candidates for Township Committee make a false connection between rising property taxes in Montgomery and municipal spending. To help set the record straight, here are some additional facts:
Municipal spending in 2006 is down by more than $1 million compared to 2005.
While the municipal budget is larger in 2006 than it was in 2001, the net municipal tax impact has been nil. The increased spending has addressed critical needs for our growing community, including traffic relief, open-space preservation and the community center.
Municipal taxes account for about 10 percent of the property tax bill in Montgomery, with county taxes representing 15 percent and school taxes 69 percent.
With municipal taxes accounting for such a small portion of the property tax bill and with municipal spending already well under control the Republican candidates seem to be aiming at the one area that is not culpable for our increasing property taxes. Wouldn’t it be better if the candidates addressed the true causes of increasing property taxes including New Jersey’s misguided education funding formulas and runaway county spending and taxes?
We are fortunate to have two highly qualified candidates for Montgomery’s Township Committee, Deputy Mayor Cecilia Birge and civic leader Brad Fay. They understand the true causes of higher property taxes, they are running a positive and fact-based campaign, and they will continue to fight for Montgomery’s taxpayers.
I urge voters to support Brad and Cecilia on Nov. 7.
Karen Wintress
Montgomery Township Committeewoman
York Drive
Montgomery
Legislators step up to solve busing crisis
To the editor:
Kudos to Dominic DeGregory, chief of staff to Sen. Peter Inverso (R-Hamilton), and to Assemblyman Bill Baroni (R-Hamilton) and Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-Plainsboro) of the 14th Legislative District for their prompt response to their constituents from West Windsor and Plainsboro who found themselves in late August without busing for their children to their nonpublic schools of choice Notre Dame High School in Lawrence and St. Paul School in Princeton.
These dedicated legislators and staff members worked tirelessly to orchestrate meetings with representatives from the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district, Mercer County Special Services school district (the county-coordinated transportation services agency), Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey Catholic Conference and New Jersey Network of Catholic School Families, parents and Lions Travel in order to effect a resolution to this drastic situation that affected approximately 50 Catholic school students.
More important, this team of legislators recognized that the solution that was executed was merely a Band-Aid solution, and certainly not the ideal situation, since it involved cluster stops in the morning and afternoon. This means that these students would be picked up earlier than usual and combined on one bus to go to the elementary school and then to the high school. The 14th District legislators are ready, willing and able to introduce proposed nonpartisan legislation that will provide a long-term solution to the nonpublic school transportation saga that has escalated dramatically the past few years, particularly in Mercer County, due to the state budget cap, local budget cuts and rising costs of fuel.
State legislators are well aware that nonpublic school parents save taxpayers in the state $1.6 billion by virtue of the choice of schooling they have made for their child. They also know that the only thing nonpublic school parents ask in return for the high taxes they spend in the districts in which they reside is to have safe and efficient transportation for their children. More importantly, Sen. Inverso, Assemblyman Baroni and Assemblywoman Greenstein and the other 117 state legislators know that when a nonpublic school route is canceled, a significant number of students on that route are forced to transfer to a public school, since parents are simply unable to transport their children to school, no matter what the aid-in-lieu payment may be, which this year is $826. The taxpayers of New Jersey then become responsible for educating the children in public schools.
On behalf of the parent constituency that I represent in the 14th District, we are grateful to have the backing of Sen. Inverso, Assemblyman Baroni and Assemblywoman Greenstein, who recognize that all children should be entitled to get safely and efficiently transported to their schools of choice, regardless of whether they go to public, private or parochial schools.
Mary Ellen Procaccini
Director
New Jersey Network of Catholic School Families
Ship Bottom
Allow marijuana use as medical conditions require
To the editor:
New Jersey lawmakers will soon consider whether to pass into law the "New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act" (S-88 and A-933). This act would remove the statewide criminal penalties for the use, possession and cultivation of a small amount of marijuana for qualified patients under a program administered by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services.
The Coalition for Medical Marijuana-New Jersey urges lawmakers to support this bill as it is written. We oppose any attempt to restrict the diseases or conditions that would qualify a New Jersey patient for medical marijuana. This is a question that is properly left only to the treating physician. There are, moreover, a number of rare conditions that respond well to medical marijuana.
The federal government, in its only existing investigational new drug trial of medical marijuana, recognizes Nail-Patella Syndrome as well as Multiple Congenital Cartilaginous Exostosis as qualifying conditions for medical marijuana. These two conditions respond well to marijuana therapy, as do the more common conditions included in the IND study, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis. The federal government has been treating patients in this study for up to 27 years by giving them marijuana. Each month, the patients in this IND study receive from the federal government a canister that holds about 9 ounces of marijuana. The canisters hold 300 pre-rolled cigarettes that may be consumed at the rate of 10 or more per day, or about 2 ounces per week. All of the patients in this study are doing well their conditions are controlled, side effects are minimal and marijuana is the only medicine they are using for their conditions.
Here in New Jersey, a mother contacted CMM-NJ to beg that her son be allowed medical marijuana for a condition called Friedreich’s Ataxia. She said, "There are about 6,000 people in the country who have this disease. There is no cure and marijuana is the only thing that works for the pain. It’s not easy watching your child suffer from pain when a simple solution like marijuana can ease the muscle spasms, bone and joint pain, muscle pain and involuntary eye movements that this disease (causes)." Nothing relieves her son’s symptoms as safely and as effectively as marijuana. Who could face this mother and say, "We will only allow medical marijuana for cancer and multiple sclerosis, but not for your son’s condition?"
And what about Roberta a kindly New Jersey grandmother who suffers from a very painful condition called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy? Her condition is progressive and incurable. Roberta plans to commit suicide when the pains get too great and the medical intervention too oppressive. She wants to try medical marijuana as a last-ditch measure. Who could say to Roberta, "No, it is better that you commit suicide than have a trial of medical marijuana?"
No one can foresee all of the conditions that might respond to medical marijuana. Qualifying conditions for medical marijuana must be decided by the patient’s own physician, not by a politician, no matter how well-intentioned. Restricting conditions for medical marijuana can only be described as arbitrary and capricious.
CMM-NJ urges lawmakers to adopt the "New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act" (S-88 and A-933) as written.
Ken Wolski
Executive Director
Coalition for Medical Marijuana-New Jersey
Spruce Street
Trenton
Soup kitchen drive wins generous support
To the editor:
I am a 10th-grade student at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South. This past summer, I organized a community hygiene products drive to benefit the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen. I have collected specific hygiene products requested by the soup kitchen, such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, soap and washcloths.
Members of my community, in Princeton Junction, have donated items through collection boxes at various locations, such as McCaffrey’s, the post office, the municipal center and the library. The community’s response was a tremendous outpouring of the requested items, a demonstration of their enthusiastic support for the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen’s work. It is my hope that this drive will make a difference in the Trenton community.
I would like to thank all who have participated for their generous support that has helped make this drive such a success.
Maya Brandon
Lorrie Lane
West Windsor