By Lauren Otis / Staff Writer
Princeton Township has notified Princeton Borough that it does not wish to engage in binding arbitration to resolve a longstanding dispute over sewer fees the township collected as part of construction of the Northridge sewer trunk line. The decision has angered some members of Borough Council who accuse the township of reneging on its earlier commitment to resolve the dispute through arbitration.
Borough Council members were briefed on the subject during the closed session of their Tuesday meeting, at which it was announced that two public joint Township Committee/Borough Council meetings had been scheduled, one for Nov. 10 and the next for Jan. 26, 2009. Several Borough Council members subsequently said the sewer arbitration development threw into question the possibility of the borough and township being able to meet in good faith at the joint sessions and make progress on a number of other issues they don’t see eye to eye on.
"I think the arbitration, for the time being, is to be put on hold and that is all I can say," said township Mayor Phyllis Marchand of the Northridge sewer issues. Mayor Marchand said she couldn’t say more because the issue was still the subject of negotiations.
"We have asked the borough to give us information on how the sewer operating trust fund was spent," said township Deputy Mayor Bernie Miller. "At this time, and I emphasize at this time, we are not prepared to proceed with arbitration," Deputy Mayor Miller said. He said there are "a lot of open issues" with regard to the jointly administered Princeton Sewer Operating Committee and the township would prefer to address them all at once rather than piecemeal.
Borough Councilman David Goldfarb said months ago the township offered that it was willing to send the sewer dispute to binding arbitration and the borough agreed to do so. "They’ve reneged on that agreement and I find that unacceptable," Mr. Goldfarb said.
Such an action does not foster an environment where borough and township discussions can take place with each party believing the other is acting in good faith, Mr. Goldfarb said. "If that environment doesn’t exist then what is the point of even talking?" he said. When the borough added the township to the title of the SOC’s River Road site, the township agreed to hold four full joint meetings a year "and have reneged on that, too," Mr. Goldfarb said.
"Frankly, I am very frustrated and believe the township has acted dishonorably," he said. Mr. Goldfarb said the borough has several options, the most effective of which is to refuse to allow the township to build a public works facility on SOC land — which it has the legal authority to do — until the township honors its commitments and addresses issues the borough wants to see addressed.
"That’s going to be discussed at closed session next council meeting, that specific suggestion, and I’m going to advocate for that," he said.
Borough Councilman Roger Martindell also criticized the township for reneging on its commitment to arbitration in the sewer-line dispute. Mr. Martindell said the township claims that it wanted an audit of the SOC prior to any arbitration was "an apparent smoke screen" because both could proceed in tandem and the township was only now raising the audit issue, six months after it agreed to the arbitration process.
As the township has slowed up on resolving other points of contention with the borough, like squaring accounts with the borough on money the township owes the borough for joint capital expenses, "now they are slowing this up," Mr. Martindell said.
"It’s not just the money, although it is a significant amount of money for borough taxpayers, it’s the general breakdown in cooperation that is so distressing," Mr. Martindell said.
Mr. Martindell said the dispute stemmed from township construction of sewers along Cherry Hill and Cherry Valley roads many years ago, for which it received connection fees directly rather than placing those fees into the SOC as it was supposed to. The result was that the borough failed to receive the equivalent of $1.5 million from its joint share in the connection fees, he said.
Deputy Mayor Miller said he felt a response from the borough regarding the township’s position would be appropriate. He said from his standpoint he did not see the issue as adversarial.
Of the Nov. 10 and Jan. 29 joint township/borough meetings, Deputy Mayor Miller said "I think there is interest in putting this on a more regular basis. I’ll speak for myself."
A private joint issues meeting held on Sept. 4 which included the township and borough mayors and other officials and staff "was a constructive meeting, a good meeting, a positive atmosphere," Deputy Mayor Miller said. Coming to a permanent agreement on the public library parking subsidy payment obligations of both the township and borough were on the agenda, he said.
Mayor Marchand said she considered township/borough relations to be cordial and looked forward to working on the issues before the municipalities at upcoming joint meetings.
Borough Mayor Mildred Trotman said "there was progress made," at the Sept. 4 meeting in setting up future joint meetings in November and January 2009. She said the joint accounts issue, and resulting money owed the borough by the township, was discussed, as was the library parking subsidy issue, but nothing definitive was agreed to. She did not return an additional call seeking comment on the sewer arbitration status.

