Sharing facilities can lead to difficulties at budget time for officials in the Princetons.
By: Jennifer Potash
The joint budgets of Princeton Borough and Princeton Township were approved by the two governing bodies in a seven-hour meeting Tuesday including the $16.7 million funding for the Princeton Public Library expansion.
The meeting illustrated some ongoing tensions between the two Princetons with the management of joint agencies and commissions.
During the 2000 budget discussion, the two municipalities agreed to spend $500,000 for interior improvements to the Suzanne Patterson Senior Center. The goal was to have space for seniors and youth that would last about five years while the two municipalities figured out whether to build a new community center, Princeton Borough Mayor Marvin Reed said.
A local architect donated his services and the work was to commence during the first phase of the Monument Drive reconstruction last fall, but the senior center plans were not ready at the time, officials have said.
The Princeton Township Committee, by withholding its share of the funding, put the project on hold, Borough Councilman David Goldfarb said Tuesday.
But Princeton Township Committee member Bill Enslin said the money was withheld because the borough delayed the work.
Other officials questioned whether the money should be spent on the Suzanne Patterson Center when another, larger facility, such as the Valley Road Building, may soon be available.
"Why are we putting so much money into this facility that’s definitely considered a temporary one?" asked Township Mayor Phyllis Marchand. "The Valley Road Building would probably be available before there’s a shovel in the ground for this."
The future use of the Valley Road Building, now occupied by Princeton Township municipal offices and owned by the Princeton Regional School District, has not been decided, Barbara Prince, chairwoman of the school board’s Valley Road Site Committee, said Thursday.
"Our mandate is to educate the children of the community," Ms. Prince said. "It’s not like we’ve said no senior citizens can use the building. But the timing is amorphous."
Also drawing strong differences of opinion was the management of the Recreation Department’s revolving trust fund, which takes in fees from sporting activities such as tennis and swimming and uses the proceeds to pay for the programs.
Traditionally programs that bring in a lot of money, such as the Community Park Pool, have subsidized other programs that are unable to pay for themselves, officials said.
Borough Councilman Ryan Stark Lilienthal questioned whether there is enough accountability in a system in which an appointed Recreation Board decides how to spend the funds, rather than having both municipalities have final say.
"No other commission brings in revenue and decides how it’s spent," he said. "I have no doubt it’s spent responsibly, but there hasn’t been the accountability we see with every other department."
Princeton Township Deputy Mayor Steve Frakt, who is a Recreation Board member, disagreed.
"You’re making it sound as if the Recreation Board were derelict and if they were, it would be because they were doing exactly what we asked them to do," he said. "To say the Recreation Board hasn’t been accountable to the municipalities is completely fallacious."
Princeton Borough Mayor Marvin Reed pointed out that the Public Library, also a joint municipal agency, collects revenues through fees and grants which it spends under the review of its trustees.
Recreation Director Jack Roberts said an annual report itemizing all the department’s spending is sent to both municipal administrators at the beginning of each year.
The approval of the library expansion’s $16.7 million cost, contained in the $16.8 million capital budget, was the last item on the agenda.
The two municipalities have already approved about $801,000 for the library expansion since 1999.
Princeton Township will contribute about $4 million and Princeton Borough about $2 million. The library will be responsible for the other $11.5 million of the $17.5 million project.
The two Princetons will initially fund the entire cost in short-term bonds so the library can sign construction contracts.
In addition to the $16.8 million capital budget and $2.1 million operating budget, the governing bodies also gave the library permission to enter into a lease with the Princeton Shopping Center for temporary space and move in by June.
All of those plans rest on having a final agreement with Public Service Electric & Gas for the environmental clean-up of the library site and Park & Shop lot both of which were the site of a gas works plant in the early 20th century.
Harry Levine, president of the library’s Board of Trustees, said there are a few complex items that need to be resolved soon.
Mayor Marvin Reed said Thursday he expects the matter to be resolved by early April.