By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
In a preview of themes she likely will highlight in her upcoming state of the town address, Mayor Liz Lempert said this week that getting more people involved in government and protecting the history of one of Princeton’s oldest neighborhoods represented some of the accomplishments of 2016.
The mayor, speaking Monday at her final press conference of the year, took advantage of the opportunity to review the past 12 months and look ahead to 2017 and the start of her next four-year-term.
“I think one of the things that I’m excited about is getting more people involved in government and in the process,” she said in pointing to the creation of a youth advisory committee made up of high school students and the civil rights commission.
Mayor Lempert, a Democrat who backed Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, said the election of Donald J. Trump “has made people recognize the importance of local government, maybe to a degree that even before they hadn’t recognized.”
“One of the benefits I would say,” she continued, “is that there’s, I think, a renewed sense of people wanting to become engaged and realizing how important their community is and how important their local government is and that they want to be a part of it and help to shape it in a way that reflects their values.”
In terms of accomplishments, she said making the once predominately black Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood a historic district was “significant on numerous levels.” She called the decision “an important recognition for a neighborhood that, I think, often went unrecognized for its contributions.”
She said the designation was an illustration of why merging the borough and the township had benefited the community. Mayor Lempert had advocated for the consolidation, a marriage that begins its fifth year starting in January.
“I think this was a great example that showed that the old township-borough line was dividing not just the town into two governments but was dividing many of our neighborhoods in a way that prevented them from advocating for themselves,” she said. “I don’t think that the historic designation would have ever happened prior to consolidation, because not only did you have two governments but you had two historic commissions and you had two separate historic designation ordinances. So just the bureaucratic overhead was so complicated.”
There will be consolidation work for the government in 2017, like harmonizing land use ordinances, she said. Also, officials plan to work on parking rules and study parking use downtown and examine such things as whether more parking is needed.
“Parking is one of those issues where I don’t think we ever solve it completely because it is a scarce resource,” she said. “But it is something that’s important for us to tackle.”
Yet there were things she had failed to accomplish. She had advocated for mandating that employers in town provide paid sick leave to their employees, an agenda item that failed to gain traction with council. Yet she left the door open for the town, “potentially” to revisit the idea next year, but she did not commit to anything beyond that.
“I think what we want to do is always greater than what we’re able to do in any given year,” she said. “And we try our best to do as much as we can. I always feel that we have both accomplished a tremendous amount and also have fallen short of what I would have hoped we could have done.”
Mayor Lempert, re-elected in November, will begin her second term next month. She and the rest of the governing body will be joined by the addition of former school board member Tim Quinn, who was elected to replace Councilman Patrick Simon. “We’re going to miss Patrick,” she said.
While Mr. Simon did not always agree with the mayor, she sidestepped a question about whether she believed she will get more done with him no longer on the governing body.
“I feel as if we’re an extremely busy council and an active council,” she said. “I feel that we’ve accomplished a tremendous amount. I think it’s exciting that we have Tim coming on board. I think it’s always helpful to have a fresh perspective. And I think it can be energizing for council.”
