By Anne Levin

As the June 4 primary election approaches, the race for two seats on Princeton Council is heating up. Members of the community can hear from registered candidates Tim Quinn (incumbent), Mia Sacks, Michelle Pirone Lambros, and Adam Bierman at two forums — one tonight, Wednesday, May 1, at 7 p.m. in Witherspoon Hall; the other Saturday, May 4, 9:30 a.m. at the First Baptist Church on Green Street.

The May 1 event is sponsored by the League of Women Voters and Princeton Community Television, and will focus on questions taken from the audience. A video of the proceedings will be posted at lwvprinceton.org and on  VOTE411.org, and rebroadcast on the Princeton Community Television channel.

The Saturday morning forum is sponsored by the Witherspoon-Jackson Neighborhood Association. Candidates will be asked to address issues and identify their priorities and solutions to problems both specific to the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood and relevant to other neighborhoods and segments of the community.

This past March, the Princeton Community Democratic Association (PCDO) voted to support, but not endorse, Sacks, Quinn, and Lambros. With 165 ballots cast and voters’ first and second choices ranked equally, Sacks received 97 first and second rank votes (59 percent), Quinn 95 votes (58 percent), and Lambros 66 votes (40 percent). Sixty percent was required to win PCDO endorsement, 40 percent for support.

A fourth candidate, Adam Bierman, declined to participate in the Democratic endorsement process because of the dues requirement ($5-$15) to vote. “There is a need to get money out of the process,” he wrote in a letter to Town Topics at the time. He is now running as an Independent and will be on the ballot in November. He will be at the forum on May 4.

At a subsequent meeting of the elected members of the Princeton Democratic Municipal Committee, 32 committee members representing the 22 voting districts of Princeton, also voting with a ranked voting system, voted to recommend to the chair of the Mercer County Democratic Committee the following ballot order in the Democratic column on the June primary ballot: Quinn, with
99 points; Sacks, with 93 points; Lambros, with 83 points; and Bierman with 45 points. The two highest-ranked candidates, Quinn and Sacks, receive the designation “Regular Democratic Organization” on the ballot.

Refreshments will be served at the meeting in First Baptist Church. “There has never been more urgency than now to underscore the importance of engaging in public discourse,” wrote former Princeton Borough Mayor Yina Moore, listed as a co-convener for the Witherspoon-Jackson Neighborhood Association, in a letter. “The importance of hearing from candidates and voting your interests in our local elections cannot be overstated as we face the cumulative challenges imposed by state and federal policies. As such, we expect a vibrant discussion at the forum.”