Letters to the Editor, Dec. 19

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, Dec. 19

Shame on PU for evading obligation
To the editor:
   
Princeton University successfully evaded all but one-third of its fair-share housing obligation by crying poor to the state agency charged with enforcement of the Fair Housing Act and the Mount Laurel decision requiring municipalities to provide its fair share of affordable housing (The Packet, Dec. 15).
   The university accomplished this coup by a private meeting last year accompanied and supported by its loyal servant, the mayor of Princeton Township (no friend of affordable housing), and comfortable with its $13 billion endowment. The state agency, also no leader in enforcing housing affordable to those most in need of housing, not only bought the unvetted arguments that schools create fewer jobs than the private sector, but expanded the state giveaway to every college and university in the state.
   Shame on one of the richest nonprofit institutions in the state for avoiding its obligations to those less fortunate than Princeton professors who are provided with very low interest mortgages and students who now don’t even need to pay back tuition grants.
   My language may seem too strong to some. But let me give you some background. Amazingly the Council on Affordable Housing does not require towns to plan for any very low-income units for families with incomes under $24,375. But 26,020 Mercer County households earn less than $25,000 — and 55 percent, or 14,000 of these families, live in the suburbs, not Trenton. In Princeton Borough and Township, a total of 1,584 families do not earn enough to qualify for what COAH calls affordable housing.
   Currently, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Mercer County is $1,103. In order to afford this level of rent and utilities, without paying more than 30 percent of income on housing, a household must earn $3,676 monthly, or $44,112 annually. So even at the minimum wage of $7.15, it would take 119 hours — or almost three full-time jobs — to afford the rent.
   So shame on Princeton University for engineering the evasion of two-thirds of its housing obligation. That means fewer affordable units for those families earning $42,500, or 50 percent of median, who qualify for affordable housing.
   What the university should do, and has both the land and the capability to do, is launch a building or below-market mortgage program of its own for those earning too little to qualify for COAH affordable housing. Then I would laud Shirley Tilghman and Princeton for meeting its housing obligation to the community and its own employees and subcontracted workers.
Mary Ellen Marino
Hornor Lane
Princeton
Micawber Books a true Princeton gem
To the editor:
   
As a faithful customer, I would like to add mine to the chorus of voices mourning the loss of Micawber Books.
   Truly, Micawber represents the best in local business. Mr. Fox, Bobbie, Mark and the other dedicated employees share their customers’ love for books, know their customers’ tastes and needs, and truly understand the meaning of service.
   I can only hope that, as Mr. Fox has promised, the new owners will maintain the quality and selection and staff of this true original. However, it’s difficult to imagine another store as special as this one.
   I wish Mr. Fox luck, and I thank him and his wonderful employees for making Micawber a true Princeton gem.
Elizabeth C. Hamblet
Wittmer Court
Princeton
Civil-union bill: separate but equal
To the editor:
   
Last week, the New Jersey Legislature passed a civil-union bill to provide lesbian and gay couples with the "same rights and benefits" as married couples. The same rights and benefits? Sounds wonderful. Sounds fair. Sounds strangely familiar.
   We have been through this before — just with a different group of folks who were deemed to be "less than" by the dominant culture. Take a look at the words of Plessy vs. Ferguson decided by the Supreme Court of the United States of America in 1896:
   "The argument … assumes that social prejudice may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the Negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this proposition. … Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the difficulties of the present situation. If the civil right of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane."
   Now, go back and read that again and insert the words gay/lesbian.
   It took more than 50 years for the court to reverse the notion that separate schools, buses and institutions were equal. When the court decided Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, it struck down laws and policies that were reflective of the discriminatory legislation of the day where separate systems were established to provide schools, buses, etc., for those who were "socially inferior."
   The New Jersey civil-union legislation provides gays and lesbians a separate bus to get to the same rights and benefits. Doesn’t really sound fair anymore — does it?
Lianne Sullivan-Crowley
Pardoe Road
Princeton
Convention must exclude officeholders
To the editor:
   
Your editorial on the tax convention (The Packet, Dec. 15) points out again the problems with our political system. The convention is the only way to change how education is funded. Further, any cost savings such as consolidation, benefits, etc., must also be on the table.
   The only way for the convention to work is to make sure no person who has ever been elected to a public office, or appointed to a public office, or who works for any government such as teachers, etc., is allowed to be a member of this convention.
   As soon as you allow the people who will benefit or be hurt by change to be part of this, or the politicians who refuse to address this problem for fear of losing an election, to be there, you will have a convention doomed for failure.
David C. Steinberg
Mershon Lane
Plainsboro
Northern Ireland not ‘occupied’ by British
To the editor:
   
I was surprised (well, maybe I wasn’t) to read, in your article on Geraldine Hughes in the TIMEOff section (Dec. 15-24), two mentions of the "British occupation" of Northern Island (sic). I had assumed that such a worthy publication would have been aware of the fact that Northern Ireland had been part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland since the Act of Union in 1801.
   Given this, the presence of British troops in West Belfast should not be likened to the American occupation of Baghdad and Iraq but seen as more akin to the occupation by American troops of Little Rock, Ark., in 1957, or that of the National Guard in Newark in 1967.
Alan Strang
Montgomery Road
Montgomery