By: centraljersey.com
We are writing to express our support for keeping the Princeton Dinky station in its current location.
Moving the station further from town as proposed in the Princeton University Arts District Plan diminishes the vitality of a public transportation asset and discourages walking from Princeton’s neighborhoods to this link. Moving the station disregards Princeton’s Sustainable Community Plan, endorsed by both the Borough Council and Township Committee, which includes the goal of improved transportation. It is critical that the station at a minimum remain in its current location and ideally be moved closer to the center of town to best serve both the university and the community.
Good design of the built environment can protect the integrity of the natural environment while enhancing cultural, historical and human assets and resources. By keeping the station closer to town, more residents will be encouraged to adopt sustainable behaviors by walking to the station in lieu of traveling by car, thus reducing greenhouse gas emissions and curbing climate change.
Public transportation is an important asset for the economic and cultural sustainablity of our town. A variety of community development projects including Spring Street, Palmer Square North, the Merwick and hospital sites, as well as a recent boom in university construction, reinforce the desirability of centrally located public transportation. Walking to town to access public transportation that connects with the Northeast corridor is a highly desirable advantage for living, working, studying and attending cultural opportunities in Princeton and the region.
We must embrace a new vision for transportation in Princeton which supports the vitality of our town and the health of our planet by emphasizing walking, bicycling, and public transportation. The Dinky Station is a vital link and should be as close to the center of town as possible.
Heidi Fichtenbaum Sustainable Princeton Residential Working Group Chair
Andrea Malcom, Eve Coulson, Tom Weiss Sustainable Princeton Residential Working Group Members
Country needs national assault weapons ban
To the editor:
The horrifying gun rampage on Jan. 8 in Tucson demonstrates again the devastating effects of allowing a lobby (the NRA and its allies) whose main goal is to encourage the sales and profits of the gun industry to dictate gun laws. While most of the media attention about this tragedy to date has focused on those who promote extremism and violent imagery, such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, it is very difficult to reign in such enticement to violence as long as it’s not overt and targeting specific people. We should strive for curtailing it, but I’m not optimistic about chances for near term improvement.
But what is quite do-able, and has been done by almost every other industrialized nation, is to have sensible gun violence prevention laws that would prevent anyone who might succumb to such provocations from obtaining such lethality. The failure to do this amounts to allowing individual citizens access to weapons of mass destruction.
A case in point is the Assault Weapons Ban. I’m proud that the Coalition for Peace Action and our Project, Ceasefire NJ, were instrumental in New Jersey becoming the second state in the nation to enact such a ban in 1991. In 1993, we succeeded in beating back an attempt by the NRA to rescind New Jersey’s state ban, which remains the strongest such law in the nation.
Inspired by our success in New Jersey and other states, a National Assault Weapons Ban was passed in 1994. It banned ammunition clips of over 10 bullets, such as the 33-clip magazine the shooter in Tucson used. Tragically, the national ban expired in 2004, when the Bush Administration together with the NRA prevented it from being extended. So the shooter was able to legally buy the clips he used to wreak havoc in Tucson.
Other sensible gun violence prevention laws, like closing the loophole that allows guns of any lethality to be sold at gun shows with no background checks, have also been repeatedly thwarted by the NRA.
When guns are so easily accessible, it’s no wonder that the United States has by far the highest rate of gun violence in the industrialized world. Over 30,000 Americans die each year at the hand of a gun. The Tucson rampage is simply the latest dramatic episode in what is a daily occurrence in the U.S.
If we want to get serious about preventing such mass gun violence in the future, we must reinstate the National Assault Weapons Ban and pass other sensible gun violence prevention laws. Such laws would not inhibit gun use by hunters or sportsmen. They would only be sensible steps to make our streets and communities protected from such senseless carnage in the future.
Any reader wanting more information or to get involved in efforts to prevent gun violence can visit the Coalition for Peace Action web site at www.peacecoalition.orgThe writer is Executive Director of the Princeton-based Coalition for Peace Action and Pastor of East Brunswick Congregational Church.
State must require charter school transparency
To the editor:
I read the announcement, "Board names new headmaster at Princeton Charter," in the Dec. 24 issue of The Princeton Packet with great interest. Having read so many similar announcements for local public schools I noticed one glaring omission from the story. The story did not mention the compensation offered to the new headmaster Mr. Patton.
According to the Trenton Times, "The charter school board is working on Patton’s final contract now."As a local taxpayer funding both the public and charter schools the double standard to which the two schools are held is inexplicable. A public school district won’t be allowed to appoint the head of schools (superintendent) before the contract is not only written but approved by the county superintendent. Since the charter school budget is not approved by local taxpayers, the state should demand more, not less, transparency from the charter schools. It is especially true in this case since the previous head of school, Broderick Boxley, resigned unexpectedly after getting a 12 percent pay raise in 2009. The terms of separation were hidden from the local taxpayers.
The issue is relevant to West Windsor and Plainsboro taxpayers as a group of parents are attempting to start another charter school for students in our district.
Given the difficult financial environment we face, as a taxpayer I expect to know the economic justification for any new charter schools. In spite of their professed preference for charter schools, I hope Gov. Chris Christie and his nominee for commissioner of education, Christopher Cerf, hold the charter schools at least to the same transparency standards as the local public schools.
Equally important to the taxpayers funding these schools is whether the headmaster of the Princeton Charter School and the proposed Chinese school is held to the same pay standards Gov. Christie has approved for local public school superintendents. If the superintendent of a public school district with less than 3,500 students can be paid a maximum of $125,000, how much should a head of school for a 170-student charter school be paid?
I hope the Department of Dducation holds charter schools to the same pay and other standards that the public school districts have to meet.
Kalpana and Ravi Joshi Plainsboro

