The Pennington Borough Council has a new member: Deborah Gnatt.
By John Tredrea, Special Writer
The Pennington Borough Council has a new member: Deborah Gnatt.
The council voted unanimously in favor of her appointment March 19. Ms. Gnatt, a Democrat — as are all other council members — replaces Dina Dunn, who resigned March 1.
Ms. Gnatt, who lives on Hale Street, has lived in Pennington for 25 years. She is a retired state deputy attorney general, a post she held for 25 years. She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Douglass College and got her law degree from Rutgers Law School.
She and husband, Robert Levy, also a lawyer, have three daughters. A member of the Pennington Planning Board for a year, Ms. Gnatt is co-president of Central High School’s PTO.
”I love Pennington, and now that I have more time I’d like to give something back to town,” she said when asked why she opted to join the council.
ALSO at the March 19 meeting, the council voted unanimously, at the recommendation of borough engineer Carmela Roberts, to apply to the state Department of Transportation for $351,000 in discretionary aid for road deterioration projects.
If the borough gets the aid, it will be used to repair sections of three streets that Ms. Roberts said have been left in very bad shape by the severe winter.
If the borough gets all the aid for which it will apply, it will get $177,000 to repair a 400-foot section of West Welling Avenue; $134,000 for a 355-foot section of Lewis Brook Road; and $40,000 for a 40-foot section of Reading Avenue.
While the borough awaits the state’s decision on the aid application — there is no deadline, Ms. Roberts said — the council appropriated, also at Ms. Carmela’s recommendation, $17,500 to work on the three sections of road soon. This will involve excavating the damaged sections and packing them with road base.
Hopefully, this will make the sections of road adequate for normal use until more permanent repairs can be made, Ms. Roberts said.
IN OTHER BUSINESS, the council conferred with Princeton recycling coordinator Janet Pellichero on that town’s organic waste recycling program.
Pennington is considering starting such a program. After a very positive response from its residents on the idea, Lambertville is running a pilot organic waste recycling program now.
Ms. Pellichero said Princeton’s program has been quite successful in both financial and environmental terms.
The borough might run a survey on the idea soon to gauge public interest.
A separate container for pickup of the organic waste would be given to participants if Pennington opts to try a pilot program.
Items that could be put into those containers include meat, dairy products, grass, leaves, newspapers, office paper, egg shells, paper plates, plastic forks and spoons and similar items.
The waste would be sent to a facility in Delaware, where it would be turned into compost that would be made available to borough residents.

