By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
Princeton Township Mayor Chad Goerner has announced he will not seek another term in office.
”I feel like I accomplished what I set out to do,” he said in a Monday morning interview. “My goal was never to be on the governing body for 20 years, I’ve already served for six and I feel like I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish. I think there are other things I want to explore and do and its good for me to step back for a bit.”
”It’s not that I’m closing the door to political involvement,” he said. “I love politics, I’m a political junkie. Anyone who knows me knows I can’t stay away forever, I just need some time. It doesn’t mean I would close the door to looking at a higher office. I may still have some political aspirations, but they are not being mayor of the new Princeton for four years.”
Mayor Goerner, 35, has been involved with politics since the age of 17 when he was the New Jersey spokesman for Jerry Brown in 1992. “I never told the campaign staff how old I was,” he said.
With a full time position as vice president of investments, advisory and brokerage services institutional consultant at UBS, Institutional Consulting, he wants to explore possibly starting his own business and take a break from politics.
”Because I have a full time job, being mayor is like a full time job. It’s difficult to have extra time available to explore those things,” he said. “I would like to do that and I would like to have the time.”
In addition to being mayor, Mr. Goerner is on the Joint Shared Services Consolidation Commission, the Transition Task Force, the library board, historic preservation, tax/finance committee, joint finance committee.
Mayor Goerner said announcing his decision now would help him focus on the task at hand: helping to facilitate a smooth transition during the consolidation of Princeton Township and Princeton Borough.
”There’s an advantage to me not running,” he said. “It prevents and distraction of any political campaign or politicizing any of the these events concerning the transition. It allows me to focus and I think that is important for the community.”
He decided not to run after he returned from his trip to China last month.
”It’s not like I’m going to leave office now, I’m still mayor, I will be mayor through the course of this year and I will make sure we smoothly transition to the new governing body,” he said. “My goal was never to be mayor for life. I don’t want to be one of those council members that wakes up and they’ve been in office for 25 years.”
Mayor Goerner decided to make his announcement early to prevent the split in the party that happened last year when then Borough Mayor Mildred Trotman announced she wasn’t running until March, forcing the Princeton Community Democratic Organization to push back their process a month.
A firm believer in term limits, Mayor Goerner said he would like to see some new faces get involved in the new government.
”What I envision for the new governing body will be a combination of seasoned people that have institutional experience serving the governing body, but I also think it’s time we have some new faces come forward,” he said. “The combination of experienced people and new faces will create the right mix for the combined community. I think it’s healthy for the community to have some turnover because it brings different styles and perspectives.”
”I’m not disappearing,” he said, noting a lot of the work to get the new government structure will be set up this year, and he will continue to dedicate himself to that. “I will still be involved and I will be happy to assist the governing body in any way, shape and form moving forward.”
He has not decided on endorsing anybody yet.
With Mayor Goerner not running, the playing field opens for the mayoral election this November. Borough Mayor Yina Moore said she has not made any decision about her political future.
”I just started the job, I want to focus on what I’m doing right now,” she said.
Republican Jill Jachera, who had said she would not consider running if Mayor Goerner did, is still weighting her options. She came within 100 votes of winning when she ran against Mayor Moore last November.
Township Deputy Mayor Sue Nemeth is in the running for an Assembly seat in the 16th district.
Committeeman Bernie Miller has previously said he will retire at the end of this year, but he is out of the country and was unable to confirm this on Monday.
Committeeman Lance Liverman and Councilman Roger Martindell said they are going to run for a seat on the new consolidated council.
Councilwoman Heather Howard is “likely to run again,” for a seat on the new governing body. Councilwomen Jo Butler and Jenny Crumiller both said they have not decided yet.
”Mayor Goerner stepping down has opened the mayor’s race,” said Ms. Crumiller.
Committeewoman Liz Lempert, Councilman Kevin Wilkes and Council President Barbara Trelstad did not return calls seeking comment by the Packet’s deadline.
”Chad brought a whole lot to the community and we’ll be sorry not to have him in the governing body,” said Dan Preston, president of the Princeton Community Democratic Organization, thanking Mayor Goerner for making his decision early in the process. “We have a lot of Democratic talent in town, and this is an open race, we don’t have an incumbent for the mayor of the combined Princeton. It’s a new community. We are going to have a great crop of people to choose from. I don’t know that anybody has announced for mayor yet.”
There is about two months until the PCDO endorsement meeting on March 25, said Mr. Preston. Candidates seeking the PCDO endorsement need to notify PCDO on or before March 11 of their intention to run.
”There’s a lot of time. People would be wise to start getting serious sooner rather than later,” he said.
