Initial informal session at First Baptist Church aims to prompt big turnout
By: Molly Petrilla
The doors to Borough Hall will swing open Nov. 27 for the first in a new series of public dialogues.
"We had been talking for some time about ways to reach the community," Mayor Mildred Trotman said. "I thought that lots of times people just don’t understand how the system works … and that there ought to be some way to let people know that everyone is interested in keeping the streets and the neighborhoods throughout Princeton as safe as possible."
The meeting will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the First Baptist Church of Princeton at the corner of Paul Robeson Place and John Street and is scheduled to include five-minute presentations from the police chief and health officer, followed by nearly two hours of question-and-answer discussion.
The mayor and borough administrator will also be present to offer additional information and help field questions.
Mayor Trotman said she hopes the relaxed, informal set ting will draw a large crowd and make people comfortable enough to ask about anything that may be on their minds.
"People come up with all kinds of questions," she noted. "I expect the gamut anything from A to Z. As far as I’m concerned, have at it. We’ll try to answer it for you, and if we don’t have an answer, we’ll get it."
Though it had been discussed since the summer, Borough Administrator Robert Bruschi said the idea for the community dialogues came up again at a recent meeting of the Human Services Commission.
That meeting, he added, occurred shortly after a recent incident at Princeton High School in which four black students were removed from class by borough police officers. Police said witnesses placed the four students at the scene of an assault, and the 14- and 15-year-olds were subsequently charged with complicity to robbery.
"One of the things that we talked about … was trying to get into the community more," Mr. Bruschi said of his discussion with the commission. "We thought about how we could develop a relationship with the residents on a more informal basis."
Though additional sessions have not yet been scheduled, Mr. Bruschi said the borough plans to hold approximately four neighborhood meetings per year a practice he said died off several years ago.
"We really want to resurrect (the meetings)," he said. "We thought it was very beneficial … to open up communication between the borough and its staff and the residents."
He added that the meetings will be slightly different from those in the past, which were more focused directly on the John-Witherspoon neighborhood.
For the new meetings, Mr. Bruschi said he and other officials will be visiting various churches and neighborhood centers throughout the borough. "We want to try to hit different groups and different people," he explained.
He added that future meetings are likely to include conversations with the borough engineer, fire chief and housing officials, and that representatives from the police department will likely appear "on a regular basis."
Both Mayor Trotman and Mr. Bruschi said they are unsure how many people will attend the upcoming event, but that they hope to see a large turnout.
The mayor noted, "I certainly hope there isn’t anything formal about this. People tend to ask more questions and get more involved in a setting like this."
Councilwoman Barbara Trelstad who serves as the Borough Council’s liaison to the Human Services Commission said she views the meetings as "a proactive move on the part of the borough to reach out to our constituents and the folks who live here and see if we can’t be more helpful."
She added, "I just think it’s a good thing."

