Mayor Liz Lempert began her first term in office not quite four years ago on a Tuesday in January, a day of personal accomplishment that she shared with her husband, her children and with her mother and father watching.
That she would ever reach that point, once the least political member of a political family on the West Coast, might have surprised some who grew up with her in her native California. But from the time that the Democrat worked on then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign, her political career took off like a rocket. Appointed to Township Committee in 2008, she ran for mayor in 2012 and steamrolled the opposition, first in the primary and then in the general election, on her way to becoming the first mayor of the consolidated Princeton.
Reflecting this week on her first four years as mayor, she avoided giving herself any sort of self-evaluation ahead of beginning another four-year-term in January.
“I’m not going to grade myself,” she said Monday. “All I can do is try my best, and I think that means listening to what residents have to say, being out there in the community, making sure that we’re addressing the most pressing problems and working with my colleagues (and) working with staff.”
In interviews with municipal officials past and present and others, there emerge different sides to the woman: open and thoughtful on one hand, guarded on the other. During this year, for instance, she refused to say whom she was supporting for president, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, until it became apparent Ms. Clinton would win.
Her tenure has dovetailed with the start of consolidation, the historic merger of the borough and the township that she fought to achieve and be at the center of.
“Certainly, the first couple years were dominated by that,” Mayor Lempert said. “And I think we’ve finally gotten to the point where a lot of the thorny issues that we’re dealing with are not particularly consolidation-related. It’s just issues that we’d be dealing with no matter what.”
She said the consolidation is “largely” in the rearview mirror, despite a “couple pieces” that involve harmonizing land use and parking ordinances.
“Those are going to take up a significant amount of council time,” she said, “but my hope would be that we would be able to get through it in the next year or two.”
The union of borough and township was not so smooth early on, as an often-fractious governing body made up of members of the township committee and borough council found themselves at odds. Mayor Lempert once said the marriage was “a bit like throwing together two rival football teams.”
In 2014, Mayor Lempert notably picked sides in a contested primary to support her friend, Sue Nemeth, get elected to the council. The strategy backfired, with Ms. Nemeth losing in a close election to incumbent Councilwoman Jo S Butler. At least publicly, the tensions on the governing body have subsided.
“I think she’s taken her responsibilities very seriously, and I think she’s worked very hard,” Ms.Butler said Monday of the mayor.
“She has juggled a lot,” added Councilwoman Jenny Crumiller on Monday.
For his part, Robert K. Durkee, vice president and secretary of Princeton University, said this week that one of Mayor Lempert’s “great achievements” was making the transition from two communities to one, something that he said “happened quickly and well.”
Yet there were challenges early on.
When Mayor Lempert took office in 2013, there was a looming legal battle by developer AvalonBay to construct a large housing development at the former Princeton Hospital site on Witherspoon Street. Shortly after her being sworn in, members of the police department brought allegations of misconduct against then Chief David J. Dudeck.
In the time since then, Mayor Lempert gets credit for improvements within the police department, one that has put an emphasis on community policing.
“I think she’s had some accomplishments,” said former Borough Councilman Kevin Wilkes, who ran against her in the 2012 Democratic mayoral primary.
In her tenure, Mayor Lempert sought to improve relations with Princeton University, even though she is conflicted from participating in any land use-related or financial matters involving the school given her husband is a professor there.
“I think it’s been a very good relationship,” Mr. Durkee said.
“I think Liz has devoted a great deal of time to the position. And I commend her for that,” said former Princeton Township Mayor Phyllis Marchand, whom Mayor Lempert replaced on the Township Committee in 2008.
Mayor Lempert is the product of a political family that saw her mother, Sue, serve as the mayor of San Mateo, California, and one of her older brothers, Ted, serve in the California state legislature as an assemblyman. Yet for many years, it appeared that she would not be following in their footsteps.
“She was the least political person in our family,” said Sue Lempert by phone this week.
In having a mom who held the same office, Mayor Lempert would seek advice from her early on in her tenure, although that became less and less frequent as she got more into the job. From across the country, the mother takes pride in the work her daughter is doing.
“I think she’s a much better mayor than I was,” Sue Lempert said.
So what’s next? Mayor Lempert has maintained that being mayor is the job she loves doing, and brushes away any suggestion of running for higher office. Even though hers is a part-time position, she is a daily fixture in the municipal building and seen as being hands on.
“I hope so,” she said laughing when asked if she had grown into the position. “I think I’m more aware now of how I spend my time, and I try to be more in control of where I’m putting my energy. And I think that’s something that I’ve benefited from experience.”
She said being mayor is a job, “where if you don’t lay out goals of what you’re trying to do, there are other things that are going to take up all of your time.”
“It’s a kind of job where it’s impossible for everybody to be happy all the time,” she continued, “but it is important to me that people feel like they’ve been heard.”
