Consolidation is generally supported in the Princetons, according to focus groups held by the Joint Shared Services Consolidation Commission (JSSCC).
Consolidation was the first choice of the focus groups over shared services. The study found people generally supported consolidation with 15 of the 24 people surveyed favoring or 6 of the 24 that are leaning toward favoring it. One participant said the municipalities are joined psychologically already in a report from Wednesday night’s JSSCC meeting.
Focus groups found that people valued remarkably similar things.
Although the focus groups “are way too small to have a statistical impact,” said Patrick Simon, the JSSCC member who led the focus groups, they are useful for information gathering.
If the finances of consolidation are to have a differential impact, then must both be fair and appear to be fair, according to the report. Residents do see unnecessary duplication in the administration of two municipal governments, police and public works departments and maintenance of two sets of municipal buildings. The bickering of the two municipalities is seen as an inefficiency.
In the survey, participants responded they would like to see debt spread among a consolidated municipality and not apportioned to the former towns.
Another finding for the focus groups was that “residents have a sense of identity with a municipal identity,” said Mr. Simon.
Princeton University, with its wide range of benefits, is seen as playing the two municipalities against each other for its own benefit and a unified town with a unified voice might get a fairer deal.
All participants said the schools are the primary reason they live in Princeton.
The group also discussed a forthcoming options report that will detail all the ideas and options considered by the subcommittees and the full JSSCC. The options report will be online about eight days before the third public meeting on May 11.
Many subcommittees have made recommendations to the full commission already and the options report will contain a review of each option as well as recommendations.
”It will document the conversations at subcommittee level and is not a regurgitation of the baseline report,” said Anton Lahnston, chair of the JSSCC. “It’s really a set of reports that the subcommittees have been working on.”

