Hemant Marathe, West Windsor
I should be flattered that West Windsor Township has a full time employee whose job description includes responding to any criticism of the mayor’s action by me through a letter to the editor. This is at least the third time Ms. Pat Ward, the director of Community Development for West Windsor Township, has responded to my letter raising questions about both the process and substance of actions by Mayor Hsueh.
As the mayor said at the last council meeting, the buck stops with him and he should not use a paid township employee to respond to criticism of his actions. He is welcome to engage in a discussion if he so chooses. But sadly as he states in his own letter, “I have not involved myself in the dialogue.”
Ms. Ward cleverly tries to deflect attention from the process followed for the RFP and the mayor’s actions. No one on council, including me, has questioned the authority of the mayor to issue the RFP or begrudge the fact that the RFP was issued in the first place.
Although the mayor is jumping to take credit, the record shows that the mayor had no plan to fix Canal Pointe Boulevard (CPB) this year. His budget as submitted to the council didn’t include any plan to fix the road in 2016. The council forced his hand by unanimously demanding that the road be fixed this year.
The troubling part of the process is that the mayor either directly or indirectly forced township employees to withhold information from the council. Although the mayor knew full well that the RFP was not only issued but also returned three days before the council meeting on March 21, he refused to share it with council. When council found out about the RFP, he insisted that the RFP was confidential and council should not share it with anyone. As township attorney Herbert stated when asked, RFP’s are public documents.
The length to which the mayor has gone to hide information from council and avoid any debate on this issue is very troubling. The mayor has done great damage to the relationship of township employees with council. After this incident, every time a township employee provides information to council, I will be forced to ask, “What information does the mayor want the employee to hide from council?” It is unfair to the paid professional employees of the township.
Ms. Ward claims West Windsor leaves itself open to a lawsuit if the township doesn’t pursue the road diet as preferred by the mayor. Ms. Hamilton was also reading from the same playbook at the last council meeting. Let me point out a few things to Ms. Ward, Ms. Hamilton, and Mayor Hsueh.
Your consultant, the Burns Group, has admitted in public that they did not consider response times for EMS vehicles in their study of the road diet plan. One of the strongest proponents of the plan in a subsequent Facebook post admitted that EMS response (includes ambulances and large fire trucks) would be slower under the road diet plan. If subsequent to completion of the road, EMS response is delayed during an unfortunate incident, you have now exposed the township to a much bigger lawsuit by publicly admitting you have ignored the issue.
Moreover, the Burns Group also stated in their report that the road diet is not a viable permanent option anyway, as the area has already been approved for significant further development, which would require a four-lane road. This is one of the few times in life that I hope I am wrong and that people living around CPB don’t suffer significant negative consequences of the plan that is forced upon them without much public discussion.
Hemant Marathe
Vice President
