PRINCETON: Debate continues on care, future of former school

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
   The Princeton school district is allowing the Valley Road School building to deteriorate and needs to make basic repairs, according to mayoral candidate Richard Woodbridge.
   Mr. Woodbridge, a 1957 graduate of the school, has worked with others to form a nonprofit organization that wants to acquire the Witherspoon Street wing of the building as the site of a future community center. The Valley Road School Community Center Inc. has about $10,000 so far, although the group stopped raising money about a year ago.
   In the meantime, he said the district is not maintaining an asset that it has a legal responsibility to care for. In July, he took photos documenting broken windows and other signs of neglect. While there, a custodian told him to leave the property, he said.
   He went public with his criticisms at last week’s Borough Council meeting after reading a published comment by Superintendent Judith A. Wilson saying the Valley Road building has been “well maintained.”
   ”That’s nonsense,” said Mr. Woodbridge in a phone interview. “They refuse to maintain it.”
   He called on the district to earmark money in the upcoming $10.98 million bond referendum to make basic repairs to the school.
   But district officials said that would not happen.
   Ms. Wilson, in a phone interview, said the projects for the Sept. 24 referendum were approved by the state Department of Education and cannot be deviated from. She said that several years ago, officials decided not to invest money from the budget into a building “that we have no determination of use for.”
   She said the school board passed a resolution saying it would not pursue any discussions about the building until after the consolidation of the two towns in January.
   ”While the board has not made a final decision on the future of the Witherspoon portion of the Valley Road Building, we have stated unequivocally that we are not willing to commit public funds to the maintenance of buildings not being used for the education of our students,” school board president Timothy Quinn said in a statement Wednesday.
   Ms. Wilson said the former school is in “horrendous shape.”
   Valley Road School has suffered from extensive water damage through the years, she said. Estimates to repair the building are at $10 million.
   ”This is not a patch it and paint it situation,” Ms Wilson said.
   Valley Road School is historically significant, because it was the first school in the district to be integrated. The property always has been owned by the Board of Education, although it stopped being a school decades ago, Ms. Wilson said. During its lifetime, it has served as the township municipal building. Today, the school district administration is located in one part of the building, with other tenants occupying the other wing—for now.
   TV-30 and the Corner House, a local substance abuse program for teens and young adults, are moving out to Borough Hall, borough officials said. There was a proposal last year for the Fire Department, the Corner House and the Princeton First Aid and Rescue squad to acquire the building and construct a new one to accommodate the squad and the Corner House and allow the fire department to expand its next door headquarters.
   The school board rejected that proposal and a proposal by the Save the Valley Road School, waiting instead after consolidation to decide the future of the property. In the meantime, the rescue squad is looking to acquire property to build a new headquarters of its own, said Peter Simon, squad president.”The Princeton First Aid & Rescue Squad currently operates out of a nearly 50 year-old building that we have long since outgrown,” Mr. Simon said in an email Wednesday.
   ”Built at a time when converted Cadillacs were used as ambulances, every aspect of PFARS has grown significantly — with the exception of the building, which only saw the addition of one bay for our rescue truck in the 1970s.
   ”PFARS continues to explore all of its options and has not excluded any solution that would enable the construction of a facility that would allow us to provide the essential emergency medical and technical rescue services the Princeton community needs.”