PRINCETON: Simon: People want to keep taxes down

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
   Council candidate Patrick Simon came to Princeton as a graduate student in the 1980s. And for the most part, he never left.
   Mr. Simon is running for Princeton Council seeking to implement the consolidation of the two Princetons, a historic merger that he helped bring about. Merging towns means eliminating the duplication residents encountered that came with having two governments.
   ”So there’s a lot of times when people have to go through both governments or both administrations to get something approved,” he said in an interview.
   Mr. Simon, a Democrat, is running on a slate with five other council candidates and mayoral candidate Liz Lempert. This is his first campaign for elected office.
   ”As I’m canvassing and walking around town, the single most mentioned issue is keeping taxes down,” he said. “Consolidation, in the short term, is our best bet in that direction. It’s not a cure-all for a long period, but it’s where we’re going to find the most savings in the short term.”
   He first foray into local government was as a member of the Consolidation Study Commission in 2011. He felt that his background in consulting would be an asset.
   One of the commission’s recommendations was to reduce the police department to 51 officers by year three of consolidation. While that recommendation is not binding, Mr. Simon said he believes police can get to that number.
   ”Having said that, one of the things that we certainly would not want to do is compromise public safety. So if there is any indication that we got it wrong, we’ll make a course correction,” he said.
   On other issues, he said he feels Princeton needs more affordable housing, not just affordable on the low end, but also on the market level.
   ”If we truly want a diverse town represented by various income levels, then we need more housing stock that’s available to people who have median incomes but who would not be qualified as poor,” he said. “In theory, the AvalonBay development offers that. The question is whether it offers that with compromises that the community is happy with.”
   Mr. Simon, 48, is a Detroit native who holds degrees from Michigan State and Princeton universities. He works for Princeton Consultants, the firm that Jon Crumiller, the husband of borough Councilwoman Jenny Crumiller, co-founded.
   Asked if he would feel pressured to go along with Ms. Crumiller given his work arrangement, he replied: “No more or less than anybody else who I like or respect, which is pretty much everybody who’s going to be on council. I don’t seen an issue there.”