To the Editor:

It is with regret and disappointment that I must advise Princeton voters that the Princeton Republican Committee will not be fielding candidates in the June 3 primary election this year for the two positions on the ballot for Princeton Council.

The reason is not a lack of highly qualified Republican candidates. In recent years, long time Princeton residents with outstanding qualifications have been candidates. They have included community activists, lawyers, businessmen, financial planners, diplomats, an art critic, teachers, minorities and NGO leaders. All conducted energetic and spirited campaigns focused on important local issues.

Unfortunately, most Princeton Democrats have a deep and difficult inability to rationalize prejudice against Republicans which is illustrated in the typical Democrat campaign ads which focus on party label rather than a candidate’s demonstrated competencies relevant to resolving local problems. Local Democrats would rather conjure up stereotypes based on outliers on the national political scene than discuss local issues and candidates on their merits. This approach results in a highly partisan, one-party Council and political stultification to the detriment of good government

Until Princeton Democrat elites who profess to champion “diversity” achieve logical consistency and accept that “political diversity” is a benefit to society, the community will be under stress and local government will continue to muddle along. Think high taxes and fees, bureaucratic regulation, potholes, a mountain of debt, bloated budgets, entanglement in lawsuits and expensive settlements, lack of transparency and political grandstanding about issues irrelevant to Princeton’s quality of life.

Princeton Republicans wish only the best to our Democrat friends and neighbors. I know that many of them have followed with interest the contentious lead-up to the Democrat primary election. The reality is that there is not a dime’s worth of difference between the candidates. All three of the candidates are highly partisan taxers and spenders. The current Council votes unanimously 95 percent of the time. The outcome of the primary will not change this group-think. The tax savings ballyhooed to promote municipal consolidation will continue to be a pipe dream.

Princeton should be a beacon of municipal governance in New Jersey and match the excellence of other local entities. That it manifestly is not is an embarrassment to us all.

Dudley Sipprelle

Chairman. Princeton Republican Committee,

Nassau Street