To the Editor:

“Gary Player’s inspiring golf course is the centerpiece of a unique private club boasting a variety of golf, dining, and hospitality amenities in a pristine natural setting.” So says the Jasna Polana website. Yet “in a pristine natural setting” struck me as wonderfully inappropriate this past week as I was searching for the club’s phone number in order to tell a manager there about a problem in the neighborhood.

The quarter-mile stretch of Jasna Polana property on Province Line Road off of Rosedale Road is neither pristine nor natural. Until a few weeks ago, it was a jungle of drying trees, invasive vines, and ambitious weeds. One day in June, a wide strip of the roadside jungle was reduced to smashed branches, pulverized weeds, and deep tire tracks by a Princeton crew driving a one-armed blast-it: a truck with whirling blades at the end of a giant hydraulic arm.

The jungle was ugly enough every year from October to March, and I had asked the management of Jasna Polana several times to remove some of the dead trees and pick up the trash there. But no luck.

Last Monday, July 15, as I came out of our drive opposite this stretch of Jasna Polana, I saw lots of trash — bottles, cans, magazines, even food — strewn along the far side of the road and over the hacked-up strip. I looked closely and saw that the garbage had not come from our house. I speculated that trash collectors had accidentally spilled it and, in their haste, left it, or that vandals had spilled it.

Returning home several hours later, I saw a street-sweeper truck coming down the road. As I had never seen a street-sweeper on this road, I assumed that someone had requested it. The truck went down the golf course side of Province Line and swept nearly all the trash onto the denuded strip.

I called Jasna Polana, told the person who answered what had happened, and asked him to inform the grounds crew. For a couple of days, the trash remained there, so I called again and left a message directly with the head of grounds maintenance. If the club did not want to pick up the trash, I said, I would be willing to call the Princeton and Lawrence town halls and, if need be, Mercer county to see what I could arrange. I also asked for a call-back. Now, a week after the mess was made — no call-back and no clean-up.

Every few weeks, I pick up trash on our side and Jasna Polana’s side of the road. Several years ago, I even organized a neighborhood trash pick-up day along Province Line between Rosedale and Carson roads. But I have not wanted to pick up garbage in the awful heat of the past week.

Question: Assuming that trash-collectors (and recycling-collectors) are not required to pick up what they spill, who is supposed to do it? This privileged part of the Garden State is looking a lot less “pristine and natural” than it did not so long ago.

Richard Trenner

Province Line Road