By: centraljersey.com
I would like to applaud the letter submitted last week by Daniel Domina regarding the deer population in East Windsor. They have most certainly become more bold over the past several years and I have seen them numerous times in areas of our town some distance removed from wooded land.
I would, however, like to point out that the deer fence erected by the Lee family was not put into place until after the township completed construction of the walkway/bikeway that runs from Oak Creek Road to behind the Hickory Corner Library, as this construction greatly increased the number of deer that the Lees had to contend with.
I also would like to point out that the number of deer in New Jersey now is higher than it was before New Jersey’s settlement by Europeans. Deer thrive in edge habitats and fragmented landscapes, which is precisely what people have been creating for them with suburban sprawl. That, coupled with a decrease in hunting, has led to the huge deer populations we see in the state today. Preserving large, continuous, forested tracts of land would help to remedy our state’s deer problem and decrease automobile accidents.
Furthermore, the deer population explosion has had a negative impact on the state’s forests by wreaking havoc on our forests’ understory, which makes it much easier for invasive plant species to gain a foothold and dramatically alter the ecology and quality of ecological services provided by these forests.
Hunting remains a tried-and-true method of deer population control. If the township (and municipalities across the state) would allow for greater deer hunting there could be a much healthier ecosystem within the state and far fewer deer-related car fatalities.
Daniel Clark East Windsor
Still reading about proposals for mill site
To the editor:
When we moved to East Windsor back in 1985, my wife and I started reading articles in the Windsor-Hights Herald about proposed plans for the former mill site in Hightstown. It is now over 25 years later and we are still reading about proposed plans for the mill site.
Whatever the reasons for the rejection of the latest plan, we both find it hard to believe that in all the intervening years there has not been a single proposal that could have been accepted and been a benefit to the taxpayers of Hightstown.
We are both quite convinced that when it is time for us to move on to someplace warmer for our "golden years," we will still be reading about yet another rejected development plan.
Charles Repka East Windsor
A different take on budget numbers
To the editor:
The Windsor-Hights Herald article titled "Township eyeing slight tax increase" (March 4, 2011) sounds like another editorial written by the mayor of East Windsor under the guise of news. Thus, the Windsor-Hights Herald should give equal space for rebuttal editorials analyzing her customary deception, fraud, misrepresentation and just plain not telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
First of all, "a 2.49-cent tax rate hike to 40.79 cents per $100 of assessed property value" really means, using some basic arithmetic, that the previous municipal tax rate was 40.79 minus 2.49, namely about 38.30 (which if one checks their 2010 final – 2011 preliminary tax bill, was about 38.3).
Basic math says new minus old over old. That means the difference between 40.79 minus 38.3 equals 2.49, and this 2.49 increase has to be divided by the old rate of 38.3, resulting in an increase of 6.5 percent, yes a six-and-a-half percentage increase, (which is about 4.5 percent, yes four-and-a-half percent, over "the state’s 2-percent cap"). Furthermore, a mere 2 percent increase from 38.3 would only have amounted to a .77 cent tax rate hike to 39.09 cents per $100 of assessed property value.
So much for any semblance of truth in being "under the state’s 2-percent cap, she said."
So where does the "state’s pension bill to East Windsor also increased by $530,000 to a total of $1.94 million" fit? Not too surprisingly, the $530,000 increase over the previous total budget is roughly about 4.5 percent, the amount over the 2-percent cap. Furthermore, quick math reveals that 1.94 – .53 = 1.41, and .53 divided by 1.41 translates to a 38 percent increase for pensions.
Something has to be done about this problem, which the mayor herself has created by increasing pensions for public service employees at taxpayer expense in return for the public service employees voting for her, but the mayor is not even willing to acknowledge that this is a problem, and that this is part of the real reason for actually going over the state’s 2-percent cap by 4.5 percent, with pensions and health benefits amounting to 4.5 percent being excluded from the 2-percent cap.
As one congressman shouted to the president: "You lie."
Frank Paul Lukacs East Windsor

