December 19, 2012

Educators Respond to Newtown Shooting

“I spent the weekend, as did many fellow heads of schools, listening to the news for any details of the story that could shed a light on how we might better protect our students from such violence,” said Stuart Country Day School Head Patricia Fagin in the aftermath of the December 14 tragedy at the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut.

“Our hearts are broken for our neighbors in Newtown,” wrote Community Park Elementary School Principal Dineen Gruchacz on that school’s website. “We will be prepared on Monday morning to handle our children with love and care.”

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the students, teachers, and families of Newtown, Connecticut,” said Principal Gary R. Snyder on the Princeton High School website.

In remarks to be delivered at Tuesday evening’s School Board meeting (after Town Topics went to press), President Tim Quinn plans to say that “while this heinous act will continue to spur many substantive discussions about violence in our society and about school safety, speaking personally, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the principal and school psychologist who ran toward gunfire, and the teachers who shielded their students from bullets. Their actions were brave, selfless, and student-focused.”

In a letter to the Princeton Community, Superintendent Judy Wilson advised parents and teachers to “model calm and control; reassure children that they are safe; remind them that trustworthy people are in charge,” and “let children know that it is okay to feel upset.” In similar letters to parents and teachers, school officials like Ms. Fagin expressed their condolences to the Newtown community, described the availability of school psychologists and counselors ready to work with children distressed by the images, descriptions, and conversations going on around them, and listed additional resources that provide coping strategies.

They also reassured parents about the safety precautions in place — and now, not surprisingly, being reviewed — at each school.

“Inevitably, events like this stimulate review of our own safety procedures,” said Headmaster Jonathan G. Brougham in a letter to the Hun School community. “As the details of the Sandy Hook events unfold further, I assure you we will consider them carefully, and, if necessary, apply what we learn.”

“As you know, we have made security a priority at Stuart and have brought on board highly trained and experienced security professionals with extensive law enforcement backgrounds,” wrote Ms. Fagin in her letter to parents. “As part of our protocol, we regularly conduct various safety drills. Today we had a prescheduled lockdown drill during which faculty and staff secured the students in classrooms.

“Under normal circumstances, lockdown drills may create uneasiness, and in light of today’s tragedy, children may feel particularly ill at ease,” she added.

A message on the Johnson Park Elementary School website reported on the availability of Ms. Wilson’s district website message, adding that “we will be marshalling resources to help parents and staff members deal with inevitable questions that our children may ask (or may be too frightened to ask).”

Community-wide responses include an “Interfaith Gathering of Remembrance, Unity, and Hope” sponsored by the Princeton Clergy Association on Thursday, December 20, from 5:30 to 6:15 p.m. on the Palmer Square Green in front of the Nassau Inn. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families, as they try to cope with their unimaginable losses,” said Clergy Association Treasurer Robert Moore, who is also head of the Princeton-based Coalition for Peace Action. “But let us do more than think and pray for them,” he added. “Let us remind our neighbors, friends, and families that gun violence in this nation is an epidemic and we must fight.”

Mercer County administration has also posted an online message about the shooting, noting that those who are “feeling particularly affected by this tragedy and would like to speak to someone about it ”may call Mercer County Human Services professionals Michele Madiou or Ann Dorocki, at (609) 989-6897.


Township Committee Thanks Staff, Volunteers At Last Official Meeting

At its final official meeting, Township Committee honored employees and volunteers for their help during this last year, and for their years of cumulated service.

Recognizing employees first, Mayor Chad Goerner observed that it had been a “challenging” year for them. “They underwent a certain amount of stress, and they stepped up to the challenge,” he said, referring to the unusual demands posed by the consolidation process.

Princeton University was also among the awardees on Monday evening, as Mayor Goerner presented Director of Community and Regional Affairs Kristen Appleget with a “special proclamation” that recognized the University’s role in helping to supply emergency services during Hurricane Sandy. The proclamation also noted the University’s willingness to open Jadwin Gym to voters from seven districts on Election Day, when other polling places became unavailable due to the storm. The University was cited for providing “critically needed assistance that helped return normalcy to the Princeton community.”

Members of the Consolidation Commission and the Transition Task Force were also honored for their contributions. Reviewing the history of consolidation efforts in Princeton, Mr. Goerner said that a report prepared by the League of Women Voters in 1952 anticipated much of the language used in the most recent С and ultimately successful С effort. The 1952 report described how the Borough and the Township were no longer distinctly urban versus suburban communities, and how consolidation would achieve “first rate municipal services.”

Both Consolidation Commission Chair Anton Lahnston and Mayor-elect Liz Lempert thanked Mr. Goerner for his early and sustained support for consolidation.

Making a point of saying that they were not paid for with taxpayer dollars, Mr. Goerner presented gifts to each member of Township Committee.

Township Committee will gather once more on Thursday, December 27, at 10 a.m. to do some “housekeeping.”

No Vote Yet on Historic District Proposal After Injunction Is Filed by Its Opponents

The continuing saga of whether to establish a historic district in Princeton’s Morven neighborhood got no closer to a decision last week at a meeting of Borough Council. At the outset, Mayor Yina Moore said that, on the advice of the Borough’s legal counsel, no action would be taken. The matter will be taken up by the newly consolidated Council next year.

Previous to the December 11 meeting, neighborhood residents opposed to designating 51 properties bordered by Library Place, Hodge Road, and Bayard Lane as historic filed an injunction, which stopped the Council from voting on the matter. According to John Heilner, a resident in favor of the designation, the injunction was filed without informing proponents of the district or their attorney.

“The only people present at the injunction hearing were opponents’ attorney and the assistant Borough Attorney,” he wrote in an email following the meeting. “Proponents of the District were not informed when it was to be held, nor was our attorney invited to participate.”

Despite the lack of a vote, Mayor Moore invited the attorneys for both sides, as well as residents who live outside the perimeter of the proposed district, to offer comment. Lawyer Mark Solomon, representing the opponents, said that the proposed ordinance was defective because under National Register of Historic Places guidelines, a historic district designation should not proceed over the objection of a majority of the property owners within the district. But Frederick Raffeto, the attorney for the residents in favor of the designation, countered that National and State criteria are not relevant at the local level.

“National and State regulations are not the same as at the local level, so they don’t apply here,” he said. “The Federal and State register process is not part of the MLUL [Municipal Land Use Law].”

The battle over whether to designate the architecturally diverse neighborhood of grand homes in Princeton’s western section has been ongoing for more than six years. Those in favor say designation would protect the neighborhood’s architectural heritage and prevent existing houses from being torn down and replaced by those that do not blend into the existing fabric. Those opposed fear that designation would impose restrictions on making changes to the exteriors of their homes. Princeton currently has four historic districts.

Mr. Solomon called the situation “a wound in this neighborhood for six years” and “a sad story of missteps.” He also said that the move is opposed “by a strong majority of the residents.” Those in favor of the designation have argued that the number is actually evenly split among those for the designation and those against it.

Among the residents from outside the district who spoke at the meeting, most were in favor of the proposal. “Historic designation provides protection from the indiscriminate destruction of existing homes,” said Alexi Assmus. “This isn’t about politics,” said Claire Jacobus. “We are talking about the history of the community. We need stewardship, not ownership.”

Scott Sipprelle, who lives just outside the proposed district in the house once owned by Grover Cleveland, spoke against the designation. “Laws don’t make and preserve history. Laws don’t make and preserve homes,” he said. “People do. There is no debate that we want preservation. It’s a question of what is the best mechanism.”

December 12, 2012

Environmental Report Debated at Meeting

A report by an environmental consulting firm concluding that the Witherspoon Street site vacated by the University Medical Center of Princeton shows no evidence of soil or groundwater contamination was challenged Monday night at a special meeting of the Regional Planning Board. The study, carried out by Sovereign Consulting of Cherry Hill, also says that underground storage tanks at the former hospital site are not a major concern.

But an expert witness for the group Princeton Citizens for Sustainable Development, questioned by attorney Aaron Kleinbaum, said that the “due diligence” study carried out by Sovereign was not sufficient. The report examined records of underground storage tanks and the possibility of a septic system located under the parking garage, as well as asbestos in the empty building and hazardous materials on the site.

Allowing the developer AvalonBay to go ahead with its plan for a 280-unit apartment complex on the site without determining whether a septic system lies beneath the garage С which the Sovereign firm believes was either removed during construction of the garage or, if it exists, is now dormant С would not be the safest way to proceed, said James Peterson, who is president of Princeton Geoscience. “Septic issues still concern me,” he said. “Due diligence and a comprehensive site remediation report are two different things, with a very different approach.”

Mr. Peterson said that while the best time to have determined the existence of the septic tank was during the first phase of the investigation, it is still possible to delve further into the issue using hospital drawings and records that might show where septic tanks lie. “The lack of knowledge of the location of septic systems seems to me important,” he said. “If they’re unable to find it, it’s not as if there’s no recourse. It’s very easy to conduct, and I would do that.”

The lengthy discussion, which included much comment and cross-examinations by AvalonBay senior vice president Ron Ladell, was the latest in a series that has the Planning Board trying to meet the December 15 deadline. Mr. Ladell has said the company is not willing to extend that deadline.

The next and final scheduled meeting on the proposal is tomorrow night. Should the Board decide it is not prepared to vote on the issue, it could be carried into 2013, which is when the current Board will be dissolved due to consolidation and a new one will be appointed. The Board’s attorney Gerald Muller has said that the Board can reject the proposal should AvalonBay refuse to grant an extension.

Board chair Wanda Gunning made time for members of the public who cannot attend tomorrow’s meeting to comment at Monday’s gathering. While much of the focus was on environmental issues, local residents also expressed their concerns about sustainability and design standards.

Architect Areta Pawlynsky drew enthusiastic applause for her brief power point presentation about the scope of the project. Showing the scale of the buildings as compared to existing houses in the neighborhood, she likened approval of the project as it stands to the famous and much maligned demolition of New York’s Penn Station in 1963. “This is not just an ordinary application,” she said. “This is our Penn Station moment.”

Harris Road resident Marco Gottardis, who has worked in hospital research laboratories, told the Board that standards today are much improved from those of the 1960’s and 1970’s. “There may be a contamination field that goes beyond the septic system,” he said, referring to waste from the hospital before stricter standards were in place.

Borough Council member Barbara Trelstad was the only citizen to speak in favor of the AvalonBay plan. “The hospital needs to sell the site now,” she said. “The chosen developer is before the Planning Board with a pliant application. It is smart growth. The questions raised tonight apply to any developer, and I think you need to bear that in mind,” adding that the project “provides affordable rental housing in our community.”

The Sovereign firm was hired last month to do an independent report on environmental documents related to the proposed complex. Kenneth Paul, a principal with the firm EcolScience, which AvalonBay hired to do its Phase 1 environmental report, testified that he is in full agreement with Sovereign’s conclusions. “Is there any evidence that the site is not suited [for the development]?,” Mr. Ladell asked him. Mr. Paul replied that there was not. “Are there any outstanding issues from an environmental point of view?,” Mr. Ladell continued. “There are not,” Mr. Paul said.

While the meeting was contentious at times, some who have issues with the AvalonBay plan came away feeling that some recognition of environmental concerns had been taken into account.

“Princeton Citizens for Sustainable Neighborhoods was pleased to see a thorough discussion at last night’s Planning Board meeting of what is the proper environmental remediation of the former hospital site before homes are built on it,” said Alexi Assmus, a member of the group, in an email. “We appreciate the public being given time to ask questions of the expert witnesses and applaud residents’ persistence in determining what testing has been performed to date, and their careful questioning of what the process will be to find possible contamination during construction. We thank AvalonBay for bringing their environmental experts to the evening meeting.”

Tomorrow night’s Planning Board meeting, at the Municipal Complex, begins at 7:30 p.m.


AB Showing Rejected Plan Was Misleading; Wendy Benchley’s Fears Are Being Realized

To the Editor:

Alas! The wrong version of the 2005 Hillier concept plan for the hospital site renewal was introduced by AvalonBay at the Planning Board meeting (December 6). Jonathan Metz showed the first version of the plan, originally shown to Planning Board members on May 26, 2005. This version lacks the public walkway between Witherspoon Street and Harris Road that Mr. Hillier developed by July 14, 2005 for the Planning Board’s consideration, in response to Planning Board members’ input.

The later version [shown here] is more community-friendly. The public walkway makes directly accessible the public patio area surrounded by two-story townhouses located roughly where the private swimming pool (enclosed by the four- and 5-story box proposed by AvalonBay) would be, if the site plan were unfortunately approved.

Moreover, the later plan has additional public walkways “crossing the site” (Borough Code, 17A-193B.d.1), linking neighborhoods to the two on-site public playgrounds serving the neighborhoods, new and existing. It truly fulfills the urban renewal intent of the Master Plan and Borough Code.

It’s a shame the rejected plan was shown. It mis-educates the public. It’s also the plan that Barry Rabner, CEO UMCP, allowed to be published by BlueGate Partners, who marketed the property. Many of us wish Mr. Rabner had exercised more diligent oversight and not defaulted in his commitment to our neighborhood. As Marvin Reed, on the Planning Board, said in frustration, again (December 6), “the hospital proposed the design standards” — and then failed to hold its chosen developer to compliance.

Planning Board members (and the public) should know that Mr. Metz’s estimate of the size of Hillier’s public parks is incorrect by 10,000 square feet. Hillier offered 35,000 square feet, not 25,000 — a huge difference. Mr. Metz attempted to explain away the tiny sliver of park now offered to the Planning Board (14,990 square feet — less then HALF the 35,000 square feet proposed by Hillier and UMCP) by saying that the difference in size between the AvalonBay “park” and Hillier’s park is virtually the size of the building known as 277 Witherspoon, just sold by the hospital. This truth obscures two facts: 1) AvalonBay could have attempted to meet public and official intent (a generous public park on the Hillier scale) and chose not to; 2) AvalonBay’s sliver is surrounded on three sides by streets or driveways (Hillier’s vehicular entry was only on Henry Avenue, not also from Witherspoon).

We and the Planning Board must recall that the AvalonBay proposal embodies everything that Wendy Benchley feared most: “I was so afraid,” she said at a Borough Council meeting (May 8, 2006), “that the open space would be just a buffer around the block.” Ms. Benchley, for decades a distinguished civic leader in Princeton, was a serious student of urban design. The “buffer” of renters’ back yards that is now passed off as “publicly-accessible open space” (Jeremy Lang, for AvalonBay, December 6) along Witherspoon and Franklin is the realization of Wendy Benchley’s nightmare.

Joseph Bardzilowski

Henry Avenue

Given No Time to Respond to AB Testimony, Offering Comments That Would Have Been Made

To the Editor:

Since AvalonBay’s (AB) testimony regarding its proposal for the now vacant hospital property on Thursday night did not leave room for citizen comment, I would like to offer the comments I would have made had time allowed.

The design standards grew out of a public process asking what kind of development should replace the hospital when it left Princeton. Mr. Lang, AvalonBay’s engineering witness, spoke exhaustively about how he believes that it does, indeed, respond to the design standards; but it is my impression that AvalonBay’s response is superficial and that they should not be allowed to proceed until it responds to the substance of those standards.

1) Mr. Lang said, for instance, that there would be changes in color and texture of the facade, affordable housing, an overall setback larger than originally proposed, and stoops and front entrances on Witherspoon. In spite of such concessions the basic design has not changed: the proposed building is out of proportion to the neighborhood. It is a looming city block, not designed to fit into a neighborhood of one and two-story frame buildings.

Mr. Lang referred to the 119’ height of the hospital tower, saying that AvalonBay’s proposal calls for a maximum height of “only” 48’. He did not mention that this facade, like that of the Palmer Square development facing Paul Robeson Place, would dwarf the existing neighborhood. In fact, it would extend all the way around the block, altogether changing the character of the neighborhood. The fact that the houses on Harris Road would remain does not negate the additional fact that AvalonBay’s facade would tower behind them.

2) In order to promote pedestrian shopping, reduce automobile traffic, and encourage the stores currently in the neighborhood, the design standards call for retail to be included in the plan. AvalonBay does have retail in at least one of its developments, but Mr. Ladell now says that AvalonBay “does not do retail.” In Thursday’s presentation Mr. Lang said that AvalonBay does “not want to compete with” the existing stores. But I would think that in the right structures, AvalonBay might complement the services of these stores, thereby bringing them business. Actively considering retail would respond to the design standards, which sought to improve and encourage the retail offering in the neighborhood, not bypass it.

AvalonBay should respond to the public cry for responsiveness.

Mary Clurman

Harris Road

Concerns With AvalonBay Design Include Loss of Mature Trees, Back Yards Facing Street

To the Editor:

The AvalonBay design raises several concerns regarding public and open space:

Thirty-six mature trees and the very tall evergreen hedges along Franklin Avenue and the interior driveway will be cut down for AvalonBay’s building. Dan Dobromilsky, the Planning Board’s landscape architecture consultant, takes a strong stance, saying, “The analysis of the existing vegetation on this site has completely discounted the value of mature landscape plantings in a community or neighborhood.” The removal of such a large number of mature trees lowers our carbon sequestration and increases the heat island effect. Like the proposed building, there’s not much that’s sustainable about the proposed plantings, either, since only a third are native.

Dobromilsky’s report also alludes to another important issue that has been sublimated by the applicant’s landscape renderings: the backyards of many units will face the Franklin and Witherspoon streets. AvalonBay’s landscape design ignores the many things that are usually placed behind a house: air conditioners; storage units; garbage cans, etc. None of these common backyard items are shown on the rendered site plan. Furthermore, the spaces that the applicant has continued to call public can become instantly privatized by the installation of fences at the property lines along Franklin and Witherspoon — none of which would require permission. And, suddenly, all that “public space” is only private ….

We must not lose sight of the bigger picture. This is the largest development site that Princeton has ever offered to a private developer, and we should be ashamed. We have handed the developer our greatest allowable development in a central location, and the AvalonBay design response has been to effectively remove the public nature that the concept plan crafted.

Consider Hinds Plaza. It, too, is the front of a large apartment complex, widely enjoyed by the public in large part because the public feels welcome and has reasons to go and be there. The integration of public features (stores, shops, institutions) and the fact that roadways on three sides do not surround it leads to its success. At AvalonBay, only the residents have reason to be there now that street-level commercial activity has been removed. It’s their front yard and no more than a glorified, totted-up bus stop for the town.

Rather than using this development as an opportunity for Princeton to show how sustainable Princeton could be, we’re allowing AvalonBay to bypass meaningful sustainability other than the givens — the scale of development and its central location. That means only AvalonBay profits, and the public loses.

Holly Grace Nelson

Leigh Avenue

Citizens for Sustainable Neighborhoods Deserve More Time to Make Their Case

To the Editor:

Clearly the Planning Board (PB) must schedule an additional hearing date beyond December 13 for the AvalonBay application. Due process and the choreography for these legal proceedings can’t be short-circuited, lest their legitimacy be questioned. While I respect the Planning Board’s need to finish work before December 31, additional overtime is needed from a Planning Board that has already labored with exceptional diligence under heavy pressure to complete an unduly burdensome workload.

To the credit of the Planning Board and its chair, Wanda Gunning, and PB attorney Gerald Muller, Ms. Gunning’s memorandum to PB clearly states: “I am not intending to limit testimony or cross-examination other than when it appears that a particular point being pursued is redundant.” She continues, however, that “if it is necessary” to impose “a time limit,” “without limiting the applicant’s and objectors’ right to present a full case, we will explore that possibility” (December 6, 2012).

AvalonBay has now had nearly three full sessions to present its case. Clearly Ms. Gunning and Mr. Muller expected them to be more “efficient” in their use of time and had anticipated that “ample time” would be left to Princeton Citizens for Sustainable Neighborhoods (PCSN) on December 6, but Mr. Simon (for PCSN) was not enabled to begin presenting his case until 10:15 p.m. He commended Ms. Gunning and the Planning Board for trying to set a schedule for the hearings but was obliged to say that it was “enormously, blatantly unfair” to PCSN and the general public to expect them to present and conclude their case in approximately one session.

The truth of this complaint was again evident as Mr. Lang, for AvalonBay, was rumbling through AvalonBay’s ostensible adherence to the Master Plan (in what some people called a filibuster), and was twice urged by Mr. Muller to finish speedily and then address design standards so that PCSN could begin its case. Toward the end of the evening, Mr. Muller agreed that a “colloquy” between Planning Board members might be necessary to set an additional hearing date beyond December 13, and after the lights had dimmed he and Ms. Gunning were seen conversing with Mr. Solow and Ms. Cutroneo. Let us hope they saw light.

The application has a huge reverberation for Princeton’s future; the honoring of due process is, in the long, democratic view, even more important.

Planning Board: Set an additional date. It’s unrealistic and unfair to everyone to expect PCSN to present its case, with witnesses, and deal with AvalonBay rebuttals, and answer questions from municipal staff, and participate in general questioning by the Planning Board — all in two sessions. In addition, Princeton citizens have a right to speak. The public has avidly contributed to the civic discussion about this application since November 2011. We don’t want our time cut short.

Mr. Muller must also demand again that AvalonBay send all official correspondence automatically to PCSN as well as to the Planning Board. AvalonBay’s tactics of withholding information are simply disreputable.

Daniel Brown

Humber Lane

If AvalonBay Proposal Is Turned Down, Vacant Site Could Have Negative Impact

To the Editor:

I have served on Borough Council for seven years during which time I have served on the Planning Board and have been part of the process involving the AvalonBay approvals. I write now, as a private citizen, in support of the approval of the AvalonBay development.

When Borough Council wrote the zoning that is currently in place, we had before us a potential model of what might be constructed on the hospital site. It was only a hypothetical guide. It was not a definitive model of what would be and we should not be beholden to that plan.

The first potential developer for the site dropped out because the model that had been suggested, with for-sale condominium units, leaving the seven-story hospital tower intact, proved not to be economically viable. In other words they would not make any money.

The hospital needs to sell the site now. They have chosen a developer who will pay the highest current price for the property, and who has the resources to build. This seems to be a rational and logical move on their part. The chosen developer is before the Planning Board with a compliant application. It may not be the most beautiful, but it is compliant with existing zoning.

The Environmental Commission on its first review of the project gave it a “thumbs up” for being smart growth. It is. This development puts density where density belongs, close to town, on bus lines, close to schools and other shopping. There is already an existing parking garage so parking is not an issue. Traffic in and out of the development will be greatly reduced from the 2,000-3,000 car trips per day that took place when the hospital was present.

Moreover, the development’s façade on Franklin Avenue will be broken up with front porches where residents might put a potted geranium in the summer time, or sit and chat with neighbors. Think of the façade now — it is monolithic and dead. The proposed development is far more neighborhood-friendly. And open space within the development is larger than required by the zoning.

If this application is turned down, what will happen to the property? The hospital has maintained it nicely in the short term, but what if, for example, there are problems with the site and the hospital finds it necessary to construct a cyclone fence around the property to protect it until a new developer can be found? This site could remain vacant for a very long time. This could have a very negative impact on the neighborhood and town.

Finally and most importantly, the developer is willing to devote 20 percent of this development to affordable housing. That is 56 units of very badly needed housing toward the Borough’s and soon Township’s unmet need of affordable housing units. The remainder of the rental units in this development will be market rate units that provide housing for working people in our town; administrative assistants, plumbers, electricians, teachers, policeman, social workers, etc. A recent letter to the editor bemoaned the fact that property taxes in Princeton are making it unaffordable for many to live in our town. This development would provide the housing needed to continue to keep Princeton an economically diverse and vibrant community.

I am troubled that the opponents of this development are elevating their otherwise laudable concern for the highest environmental standards to the detriment of another important value: providing affordable rental housing in our community. We need to work long term on improving our environmental building standards, but now is the time to provide a significant amount of rental housing here. I ask the Planning Board to approve the AvalonBay proposal and move on toward working on welcoming AvalonBay renters into our community.

Barbara Trelstad

Firestone Court

Emeritus Professor of Art History Wants Architects to Correct the Transit Design

To the Editor:

My credentials are those of a longtime Princeton resident and of an emeritus professor of Art history. Since 1965 I have walked to the Dinky and, like the students of the Graduate College two blocks up from my house, I pull my suitcase(s) to the present station, when travelling to Newark Airport. In my old age I do not want to stumble half way down Alexander Road and climb stairs late at night or under icy conditions.

As a scholar of architecture, I have witnessed how not only wars and fires, but also indifference irretrievably destroys historic contexts. I am aghast that the Planning Board wants to dispose of one of Princeton’s few landmarks. The present Dinky station embodies a long tradition of Princeton life. Whether you return home from overseas or only from a day in New York City, you feel welcomed by the beautiful campus, scenes of loved ones being picked up at the adjacent “kiss and run” parking space, a few sleepy taxis, and across the street the entrances to our two theaters. What “Gateway to Princeton” would the sight of an ugly parking-garage be?

At the Township Hall meeting on November 29 I was impressed by the questioning from attorney Bruce Afran, who extracted only evasive or no answers from the officials. I was also mesmerized by the power-point presentation of Mr. Kornhauser. As he emphasized over and over again, that the Arts Center can be built without moving our Dinky station! You don’t even need to eliminate the tracks in order to turn the abandoned station building into a restaurant (great idea!). While the proposed use of Dinky land by the University is legally challenged, since when is the Dinky itself run by the University and not by N.J. Transit? By definition “public transportation” belongs to the public! We, the public, who ride the Dinky to or from New York and Philadelphia to get to our jobs, our doctor’s, lawyer’s, etc. appointments or museum/opera visits, do not want to be forced into inconveniences, unsafe access, and time-consuming detours for the sake of the University’s employees garage. Would you not think that our town officials would protect the welfare of their tax-paying citizens instead of letting themselves be pressured by the tax-exempt University? I do not know the terms of the million dollars gift by Peter B. Lewis, but I hesitate to believe that his vision of an Arts Center was intended to benefit an existing parking garage, and surely Mr. Lewis did not mean to hurt the NJ Transit riders, seniors, commuters, the Princeton population at large (not 50 percent of the passengers are connected with the University, as Mr. Durkee has maintained). If Penn Station functions with a multi-purpose indoor arena on top, a gifted architect should be able to find a solution for how to integrate our beloved little Dinky Station into an Arts Center. Come to your senses and correct the design!!

Gerda Panofsky

Battle Road

Thoughts on PU’s “Wrong-Headed Move”: Wrong in Its Essence, Wrong in Its Details

To the Editor:

As a Princeton taxpayer who headed the Borough’s Traffic and Transportation Committee for many years, I must offer a few observations about the University’s wrong-headed determination to move the Dinky station further from downtown. My bottom line is simple (I’m sure most residents — and most Planning Board members — will have had this thought): in a time when scientists agree that climate change threatens, why make public transportation less convenient? Make no mistake; to approve this plan means more people will drive to the station and fewer people will use the rail connection, period.

Princeton is full of people expert in their fields who have testified against this proposal: among the adverse effects they have noted is hopelessly snarled traffic in the Alexander Road corridor. So not only is this decision wrong in its essence, it’s wrong in its details.

Here’s how to serve the arts: build the proposed arts complex, but maintain the current station. Princeton will not regret this outcome, just as New York City did not regret saving Grand Central station in the 1970s. As the Supreme Court wrote in that decision, “[H]istoric conservation is but one aspect of the much larger problem, basically an environmental one, of enhancing … the quality of life for people.”

Has the University’s largesse silenced those who might otherwise say that this plan offends sensibility as well as good sense? Bottom line: we know what’s right. Can we now look the other way as Princeton University trades our in-town, historic train station for better access to its parking garage?

Sandy Solomon

Bayard Lane

“Not Everybody Knows” Headline Generates Meditation on the Burdens of Disinformation

To the Editor:

Let it be known that on November 28, a new approach to journalism was born, on page 7 of the Town Topics. Though I had been waiting nearly two decades for this breakthrough, it took several readings for the importance of the headline to sink in. “Not Everybody Knows That Hospital Has Moved From Princeton to Plainsboro.” I know, it doesn’t sound like much, and my first inclination was to pass it by. Only when I re-encountered the headline, in the process of recycling, did the headline’s import sink in.

The article was about people still making the drive to the old hospital site in search of medical care. But on a broader scale, consider how many people labor under the burden of misinformation, and spend their lives driving their fevered thoughts to the wrong conclusions time and time again. Though this is considered the Information Age, it is equally the Misinformation Age, when lies go viral, replicating exponentially in nutrient-rich environments of resentment and fear. People are lost not only because they aren’t paying attention, but because they are being actively misled.

Fortunately, as the hospital article described, there is someone waiting at the old hospital site to redirect those who are lost. Additional signs directing people to the new hospital are now in place.

These steps make obvious sense, but ask yourself if the same steps have been taken to help people arrive at reality-based destinations in their thinking. Where, for instance, will people encounter, in an adequately redundant way, the basic facts about the human-caused transformations now underway that will change life on earth forever? Princeton probably contributes to the global problem of rising oceans and radicalized climate as much per capita as any other town, and yet there is precious little “signage” in news media — local or otherwise — directing us towards an understanding of the gravity of the situation.

An article in the pioneering style of “Not Everybody Knows” would give the basics about how human activity is warming the earth and acidifying the oceans, and that the many consequences — more destructive storms and droughts, coastal flooding, undermining of marine ecosystems, melting of ice caps, temperature rise — are playing out faster than scientists’ models had projected. It would say that sea rise is accelerating, with three feet likely this century, and 220 additional feet of rise still locked up in the ice fields of Greenland and Antarctica. It would say that the impacts of pouring climate-changing gases into the atmosphere, unlike with other forms of pollution, are essentially permanent, and continued dependency on fossil fuels will only destabilize climate and marine systems further.

That’s the sort of “signage” we need, posted like hospital signs in well-traveled places where people are sure to see them again and again, until the message gets through. The lack of it, the fact that one almost never encounters this information in daily living, reading, and listening without considerable search, is sending a very clear message: that it doesn’t really matter where we’re headed.

Stephen Hiltner

North Harrison Street

Thoughts on Town’s New Logo’s Resemblance To the 41st President’s Most Hated Vegetable

To the Editor:

Princeton — home of world-renowned institutions: Princeton University, The Institute for Advanced Study, Forrestal Research Center, Princeton Theological Seminary, et. al.; site of pivotal battles of our Revolutionary War; one-time capitol of our fledgling nation when the Continental Congress sat in Nassau Hall; home and workplace of Einstein, a name known the world over as synonymous with “genius”; a college campus widely known as the exemplar of Collegiate Gothic architecture in the U.S. — all this to be symbolized by a cubistic rendition of the Mercer Oak (which, by the way, no longer exists), an image that looks like nothing so much as … BROCCOLI?

Thomas S. Fulmer

Hunt Drive

Drivers Should Slow Down: Further Response To the Hit and Run Incident Involving a Deer

To the Editor:

I agree with Jerome Silbergeld’s letter (“Deer Victim of Hit and Run Event”) in the Nov. 28 Mailbox. There is no reason why this poor deer had to be hit the way he was. Like Mr. Silbergeld, I also am “ tired of hearing that these beautiful creatures are pests.”

Could it be that this driver and other drivers who have hit deer maybe are driving too fast? It would be a safer world for all of us — humans and animals — if we were all calmer and more attentive on the roads.

Gina Berger

Cherry Valley Road

Expert Design, Quality, and Super Style Are Priorities at Nick Hilton Princeton

SPECIAL STYLES: “Our motto is: ‘What makes a specialty store special.’ We specialize in custom design, and we call it comfortable elegance. That is reflected in the ambiance of the shop. There is a certain image geared to people who want to look nice.” Nick and Jennifer Hilton, owners of Nick Hilton Princeton, offer the finest apparel for men and women.

Sophisticated, elegant, and tailored clothing for men and women is the specialty at Nick HIlton Princeton. The unique studio store at 221 Witherspoon Street, opened in 2001, and has become an important resource for Princeton clients looking for fine quality fashion.

Classic American-styled clothes, many made in Italy, are highlighted, and owner Nick HIlton is a master of customized menswear, featuring comfortable elegance. The award-winning stylist represents the fourth generation of his family to dress American men. The client list includes U.S. presidents, statesmen, captains of industry, entertainers, and sports figures. Mr. Hilton’s classic yet individual designs have been featured in GQ Magazine, among others.

“My great-grandfather Joseph Hilton and his brothers came from Russia in the 1880s, and started a custom-tailoring shop,” recalls Mr. Hilton. “They opened a series of shops, called Joseph Hilton & Sons, and eventually there were 10 stores in New York and New Jersey. The name was later changed to Browning King & Co.

“My grandfather Alex Hilton, and my father Norman Hilton continued in the business. After graduating from Princeton and serving in the Navy in World War II, my father later created the Norman Hilton Country Line. He established a wholesale business that we never had before.”

Fashion Footsteps

Nick Hilton wasn’t quite sure whether to follow in the fashion footsteps of his forebears, but in fact, the interest was there, and he started out in Italy, working for a trouser manufacturer. When he returned to the U.S., he became a salesman for the family business, and found that he was to wear many hats.

“By 1975, I was head stylist, buyer, and salesman, and in 1980, I became president of the company.”

His real interest was in design, however, with a focus on softer tailoring and subtle patterns. His designs emphasized an international updated traditional style. “It’s not fashion in the sense of anything trendy or a novelty,” he notes. “We reinvent and update tradition.”

Having moved to the Princeton area in 1980, Mr. Hilton was familiar with the menswear business here, and in September 2001, he decided to open his own studio. “Originally, we had sports coats, trousers, shirts, and ties, and only our own label,” he recalls. “Then we added Hickey Freeman suits, and also sportswear, sweaters, and jeans. We now have pajamas and robes, which are very popular.

“There are definite trends in the men’s line,” he continues. “Jackets are fitted more closely to the body. Our leather jackets are styled more like blazers, with a sleeker look, and the outerwear is sleeker too. They are also multi-functional. It’s not just a rain coat, for example, but a car coat. It can be worn over a suit, and it’s waterproof, as well as lightweight. Another thing, pleated pants are just about obsolete.”

In addition to Mr. Hilton’s own designs, new lines are available this season. “New this year is the Italian duffle coat from Gimo’s and Allegri outerwear. They are cashmere, treated with Teflon, and are waterproof. We have also brought in Allen Edmonds dress shoes, Wolverine boots, and Martin Dingman informal moccasin-style.”

Pocket Squares

Easy-care, wrinkle-resistant Eton dress shirts, are very popular, and along with folded handkerchiefs, silk handprinted pocket squares are a favorite accent piece.

Cashmere scarves, also reversible scarves with wool and silk on either side, gloves from England will all get guys ready for winter. Lightweight sweaters continue to be in demand, and dark olive is a popular color generally.

Suits at Nick Hilton range from $795 to $2000 and are of the highest quality fabric, including very fine wool. Sports coats are tweed, fine wool, cashmere, and silk and wool blends.

The shop includes a number of displays featuring ensembles which Mr. Hilton has coordinated to show how different colors, textures, and patterns can work together. “I enjoy helping guys and turning them on to style. I like creating a loyal customer, gaining his trust, and assisting him with his wardrobe. We always help with advice and help him put an outfit together. A large part of the business is custom. The customers who come here care about clothes, and are willing to invest in quality apparel.”

And, it’s not just men who will find the answer to their wardrobe needs. In 2006, women’s clothing was added, and that has been a big success.

“In the fall of 2005, we noticed that men were buying shearling coats for their wives,” explains Mr. Hilton. “We wanted to offer sophisticated, elegant, tailored clothing that women would enjoy wearing.”

Personal Attention

“We brought in jackets, blouses, T-shirts, dresses, and scarves,” adds Jennifer Hilton, who is the buyer for the women’s department. “We have a lot of new lines this season, including, for the first time, Moschino Cheap and Chic, also Greenstone outerwear from Holland, Missoni, Rachel Ray, Philosophy, and Jackett soft suede jackets that are machine-washable. They are extremely popular.”

In fact, a customer walked in the store wearing one! “I love it,” said the Princeton resident and long-time Nick Hilton customer. “I like to come here often. It’s the quality of the clothes and the personal attention that are so special.”

“We also have a lot of dresses now,” continues Ms. Hilton. “They are primarily dresses that can be worn to work, but many are day-to-evening, very versatile, and can be worn to events in the evening. We are also seeing lots of bright colors now, and also prints and patterns. And scarves with color blocks are very popular in different combinations, including in cashmere.”

Also popular at the store is Barbour rainwear. “This is a special favorite of younger women, including Princeton University students,” she adds. “It’s fleece-lined, lightweight, warm, and waterproof. And it is popular with all ages too.”

Three Things

Helping women to look their best is important to Ms. Hilton. “I love my customers. They come in regularly to see what’s new, and we always have something special to show them. They are all ages, and they come from Princeton and the area, including Bucks County.”

Quality is the hallmark at Nick Hilton Princeton both for men’s and women’s apparel, adds Mr. Hilton. “Quality depends on three things. One, it should stand the test of time and be durable and classic. Two, comfort is key. The garment should move with you, and the texture should be comfortable and pleasant to wear. Three, it should be aesthetically beautiful and include classical elements, such as color tone (a palette of colors that go together), content and composition.”

Nick Hilton Princeton offers tailoring and alterations, gift certificates, sales in January and July, and on-line shopping.

“We have had 11 years of uninterrupted growth, and I look forward to that continuing,” says Mr. Hilton. “How people dress and how they look is important. It can also be a sign of respect for others.”

As for himself, he says, with a smile: “I like to be dressed. I like to go around in a shirt and tie. I like to dress up. It gives me a kick!”

The studio store is open Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday 10 to 5. (609) 921-8160. Website: www.nickhilton.com.


Popular Kendall Park Sushi King Restaurant Offers Variety of Lunch and Dinner Specials

SUSHI SPECIALTIES: “A lot of people like to come and sit at the sushi bar. They enjoy seeing us make a nice sushi platter, and it’s fun for them to watch it being made. “Chef/owner John Lung (right) and assistant sushi chef Bill Zhon of Sushi King get ready to go to work at the restaurant’s sushi bar.

Chef John Lung is very proud of his popular Japanese restaurant, Sushi King at 3562 Route 27 in Kendall Park.

“My dream was always to have my own restaurant, and in 2001, I opened my first restaurant Kanoko at Routes 518 and 27. I had that restaurant for nine years. Then, last year, I was able to open Sushi King in the Town Place, and I am so encouraged to have so many customers.”

A native of Hong Kong, Mr. Lung grew up in the restaurant business. When he and his parents came to the U.S. in 1994, the family opened a Japanese restaurant in New York City.

“My father was a chef, and I learned a lot working in the family restaurant and from watching him making sushi and other dishes,” explains Mr. Lung.

Japanese Cuisine

Sushi is the specialty at the restaurant, although a complete selection of Japanese cuisine, such as teriyaki and tempura choices, is also available. Quality and freshness are key elements, points out Mr. Lung. “We serve very fresh fish and the freshest ingredients for all our dishes. It’s healthy, low-caloric, good food. We use less salt and no MSG.”

As are many of his customers, Mr. Lung is a real sushi fan. “I especially love our Butterfly roll, with lobster, mango, avocado, crunchy sweet chili sauce, and soybean seaweed; and the Kiss of Fire roll, with crunchy spicy tuna inside and white tuna jalapeno on top.

“Sushi is actually fish and rice rolled together,” explains Mr. Lung. “The fish can be cooked or fresh, and the sushi is served at room temperature.”

Choices are available as appetizers or entrees, including four pieces of fresh fish on rice, tuna roll, California roll, salmon roll, and spicy shrimp and crab roll, among many others. A special sushi roll combination could include tuna, salmon, yellow tail tuna, sweet potato, eel avocado, tuna avocado, salmon avocado, spicy tuna, spicy salmon, spicy shrimp and crab, Philadelphia shrimp avocado, and chicken tempura.

Bento Boxes

A selection of sashimi (fresh fish pieces) is also available.

Popular entrees are traditional Japanese favorites such as chicken, shrimp or salmon teriyaki, and beef Negimaki. The variety of tempura dishes, including vegetable, chicken and vegetable, shrimp and vegetable are all in demand. Entrees are all served with rice, soup, and salad.

Specialties also include the popular lunch and dinner Bento boxes, including chicken, beef, salmon, and flounder teriyaki. These are all served with rice, shrimp and vegetable tempura, California roll, miso soup, and house salad.

Mr. Lung has also introduced a new “All You Can Eat” lunch and dinner buffet special menu. Sushi, sashimi, various rolls, tempura, teriyaki, soup and salad, dessert, and more are all offered for $19.95.

Other prices include salads and appetizers from $2.50, sushi rolls from $3.50, and hot entrees from $11.95.

Popular deserts at Sushhi King are Tempura ice cream and Tempura banana, and assorted soft drinks are available. Customers are invited to bring wine if they wish.

Customers, including families with children, come from all over the area, reports Mr. Lung. “We can seat 65 people with tables, booths, and the sushi bar. We have tried to create an attractive decor, with an Asian theme, but also blending American tastes. That’s the feeling I wanted.”

Best Sushi

“I really enjoy being with the customers,” he continues. “A lot are people who came to my former restaurant Kanoko, but there are many new people too.”

Kendall Park resident Matthew Kroeper was a loyal Kanoko customer, and now comes regularly to Sushi King. “The sushi and the service are just great. It’s definitely the best sushi around.”

Catering is a growing part of the business, adds Mr. Lung. “We are very busy with catering, and we have many orders for Thanksgiving. We will be especially busy during the holidays, and I also go to people’s houses to make sushi for a party.

“I am very proud of achieving my dream to have my own restaurant,” he adds. “We want to be known as the place to go for sushi, and we want to invite everyone to come in and try our great dishes.”

Sushi King is open Monday through Thursday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., 4:30 to 9:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 to 3, 4:30 to 10; Sunday 12 to 9. (732) 821-8822. Website: www.sushiking27.com.

Obituaries 12/12/12

John Alward Pell

Beloved husband and father, John was born in Orange, N.J. in 1926. He graduated from Newark Academy and Princeton University cum laude. He was on the football team and a member of the class of 1948 and served as vice president of his class from 1998-2003. John was a member of the Tower Club and Navy ROTC. John went on to graduate from the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania with an MA in finance. John served as ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve until 1957. He was in the oil department and authored a 100-page report on shale refining in 1955. He then served as manager of banking in N.Y. and N.J. for Chase Manhattan Bank. John went on to become vice president in 1965. In 1968, he and his family moved to London and lived on Chester Square. There, he was a director of the Standard Bank responsible for 17 countries in Africa and the Middle East. In 1972, he became managing director of London InterState Bank a consortium of 5 banks: Keyzer Ullman, Hamburgische, Landesbank, Wells Fargo, Maryland National, and the Indiana National Banks. The family lived in London and Brixham London.

John was president of British American Associates, a company that sends lecturers to the English Speaking Union. In 1979, he became senior vice president of Midlantic Bank in N.J. He traveled Europe and the Middle East for Midlantic, then became president of the Bank of China for Midlantic. John and his wife, Jan, moved to Hong Kong for one year, before selling the bank to The Bank of Southern Africa. He retired from Midlantic in 1992. He then served Governor Christine Todd Whitman as vice chairman of the New Jersey Banking Board for Foreign Trade during her term. In 1994, he became president of World Water Inc, which delivers solar-powered water equipment to the developing world.

John was a member of the Essex County Country Club, the American Church in London, and the Hurlingham Club in Roehampton, London, Bucks Club, and Addington Golf Club, both in London, the Nassau Club, The Bedens Brook Club, and the Nassau Church in Princeton. John was an avid golfer and enjoyed playing tennis with his children and traveling throughout Europe and the British Isles with his family during his 11 years in England. He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Janice Phillips Pell and his sister, Nancy Campbell from Mendham. He is also survived by three children: Richard C. Pell, Sandra Pell deGroot, and Leslie Pell Linnehan and six grandchildren; Roxanna Pell, Samual Pell deGroot, Lila Pell, Lucinda deGroot, Catherine Gardiner Linnehan, and Gibson Pell Linnehan.

A celebration of life will be held on Saturday, January 26, 2013 at Trinity Church on Mercer Street in Princeton with a reception immediately to follow at The Bedens Brook Club at 240 Rolling Hill Road in Skillman.

—-

Henry Davison, Jr.

Henry Davison, Jr., M.D., beloved husband, father, surgeon, and teacher, died on Friday at the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro (UMCPP). He was 51 years old. The cause of death was pneumonia after a long, heroic battle with cancer.

Dr. Davison grew up in Fort Smith, Arkansas and graduated first in his class from Northside High School. He received a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, from Columbia College, New York, New York in 1983. He then attended Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and graduated with distinction, a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, the national medical honor society.

In 1992, Dr. Davison completed a general surgery residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, New York, New York and entered surgical practice at the Medical Center at Princeton (now known as UMCPP). In 1993, Dr. Davison became a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and was board certified in general surgery by the American Board of Surgery. On the faculty at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School as a clinical instructor of surgery, he taught many medical students and surgical residents over a twenty-year period. Dr. Davison was president of the medical and dental staff and participated in the decision to move the hospital to its new site. He was also chairman of the Medical and Dental Staff Bylaws Committee. Dr. Davison founded “Soul to Soul”, a program for the general public to provide speakers on health issues of concern to African-Americans, sponsored by UMCPP Community Education Outreach. Dr. Davison performed general surgery including cancer and laparoscopic surgeries and endoscopic procedures. With a colleague, Dr. Davison performed the first laparoscopic colon resection at UMCPP. Dr. Davison also pioneered the use of single-port access surgery at UMCPP. In practice until a week before he passed away, Dr. Davison cared for countless residents of Princeton and the surrounding area during his years as a surgeon.

In addition to his work as a surgeon, Dr. Davison was a long-standing member of the Board of Trustees of the Chapin School and a dedicated supporter of Chapin School Soccer and Lacrosse, Montgomery Township Soccer and Youth Lacrosse, and Peddie School Soccer and Crew.

Son of the late Ruth Davison of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Dr. Davison is survived by his beloved wife, Oakley, and precious sons, Bradley, 17, Alexander, 16, and Ryan, 14; sisters-in-law Grace Gibson, Glenda Greaves and Barbara Cadogan; brothers-in-law Trevor Babb and Tierson Babb; and nieces Sheena Gibson, Shari Strickland, and Nadia Cadogan. He will also be missed by his colleagues and the staff at Princeton Surgical Associates and UMCPP.

Funeral services will be held on Wednesday, December 12, 2012 at 10 a.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church, Princeton. Burial will follow immediately at Rocky Hill Cemetery. Calling hours were held on Tuesday, December 11, 2012 from 6-8 p.m. at the Mather-Hodge Funeral Home, 40 Vandeventer Avenue, Princeton.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Dr. Davison’s memory to Autism Speaks, 1060 State Road, Princeton, New Jersey 08540.

On Flaubert’s Birthday, Brubeck Makes the Stars Shout, Flaubert Makes Them Weep

The word is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out melodies for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will move the stars.

—Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880)

When I’m bombastic I have my reasons.

—Dave Brubeck (1920-2012)

Dave Brubeck, who died at 91 on December 5, once said he liked to play “dangerously” close to “where you’re going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven’t created before.” The news of his death has altered my plan for a column on Gustave Flaubert’s birthday, which is today, December 12. What Brubeck was “dangerously” trying to accomplish on the piano, and his defense of being “bombastic,” seems not incompatible with Flaubert’s remark about the cracked kettle of the word, except that Brubeck wanted to do more than move the stars; he wanted to make them shout. As Gary Giddins suggests in his 2004 collection Weather Bird, Brubeck “elicits a bellowing roar rarely heard at concerts any more. In a time of rampant jazz politesse, the bursts of applause when a solo peaks and elated cries when it finishes are intoxicating.”

Flaubert is primarily known for Madame Bovary (1856), a landmark of world literature. Brubeck is known for a landmark album, Time Out (1959), and for helping, in the words of the New York Times obituary, “make jazz popular.” While I enjoyed watching Brubeck perform long ago, I was never a fan. Flaubert and his translator Francis Steegmuller, on the other hand, sealed my fate. For better or worse, published and unpublished, I’ve been walking the writer’s walk ever since.

In Flaubert’s Study

The first and only time I saw the Brubeck Quartet in concert, I was a high school junior covering the event for my entertainment column in the student newspaper (some things never change). Three years after seeing Brubeck, I received an unexpected Christmas gift from my parents: a copy of Madame Bovary in Steegmuller’s just-published translation, along with the Vintage paperback of Flaubert and Madame Bovary, his book about the writing of the novel. This puzzling gift was probably my writer mother’s doing, her favorite characters in literature being Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina. I had no special interest in Flaubert, had never read a word. I was busy being a college sophomore, keeping up with my classes, and working on my first novel, which at that point was going nowhere. The part of Steegmuller’s book that changed my life was in the appendix, which included Flaubert’s detailed plot outline for Madame Bovary. As an 18-year-old constitutionally opposed to the idea of planning anything, I found myself responding to Flaubert’s outline as if the author had invited me into his study, allowing me access to his intimate thoughts, each chapter a paragraph of primed impressions, key words, fragments, and ideas separated by dashes. Being already “half in love” with easeful dashes, I sat down at the keyboard of my trusty Olympia (a high-school graduation present) and executed with bombastic Brubeckian intensity a ten-page outline for my novel in the same form. Until then, all I had in the way of a plan were some notes scribbled during an ROTC lecture. The outline was my Open Sesame. The following spring I finished the novel and by July it had been accepted for publication. Without going into the admitted defects of the finished product, I have no doubt that its publication would not have been possible without my reading of Steegmuller and Flaubert.

The Ideal of Empathy

My approach to most of the subjects of this column over the past nine years has been to put myself in the writer’s or director’s or artist’s or performer’s place, doing my best to comprehend and appreciate what they’re trying to achieve. Baudelaire’s uncannily prescient response to Madame Bovary, which is included in Flaubert and Madame Bovary, still represents, for me, an ideal of enlightened empathy. At a time (1856-57) when the book was being prosecuted in the courts for obscenity (just as his own Fleurs du mal would be), Baudelaire became Flaubert’s alter ego, divining his true, deepest intentions: “We shall stretch a nervous, picturesque, subtle, exact style over a banal canvas. We shall pour huge feelings into the most trivial adventure. Solemn, decisive words will escape from inane mouths.” Baudelaire also perceived how the extent of Flaubert’s impersonation of his heroine and the depth of his devotion to her fantasies of a superior world “would suffice to make her interesting.” In response, Flaubert said, “You entered the arcana of the work as if our brains were mated. You’ve felt it and understood it thoroughly.”

Building the Hat

Flaubert’s outline and Baudelaire’s critique opened the palace gates of Madame Bovary for me. The notion that something subtly subversive was hidden inside a novel subtitled Provincial Ways gave me an incentive to read with an eye to instances of what Baudelaire was talking about. In fact, that “nervous, picturesque, subtle, exact style” is not merely present early in the opening chapter, it’s in your face, you can’t miss it. After a relatively conventional description of Charles Bovary entering the study-hall, a new student “in the last year of the lower school,” Flaubert creates a hat that would delight Dr. Seuss, who alone might be qualified to draw a “headgear of a composite order, containing elements of an ordinary hat, a hussar’s busby, a lancer’s cap, a sealskin cap, and a night cap.”

These hats within hats lead to a cadenza of the sort that makes young writers swoon, in which the hat was “one of those wretched things whose mute hideousness suggests unplumbed depths, like an idiot’s face.” The italics are intended to communicate the impact those 15 words had on a college sophomore who had only begun to comprehend the potential of the almighty simile. Meanwhile Flaubert is still constructing his magnificent hat: “three convex strips” are “followed by alternating lozenges of velvet and rabbit’s fur, separated by a red band; then came a kind of bag, terminating in a cardboard-lined polygon intricately decorated with braid. From this hung a long, excessively thin cord ending in a kind of tassel of gold netting.” The passage ends with a concise, snappy “The cap was new; its peak was shiny.”

The translation I quoted, the one that amazed and delighted my sophomore self, is Steegmuller’s. In the acclaimed 2010 translation by Lydia Davis, the bravura line emerges as “one of those sorry objects, indeed, whose mute ugliness has depths of expression, like the face of an imbecile.”

Davis is actually closer to the original French (“une de ces pauvres choses, enfin, dont la laideur muette a des profondeurs d’ex-pression comme le visage d’un imbécile”), and so is the first English translation, by Eleanor Marx-Aveling: “one of those poor things, in fine, whose dumb ugliness has depths of expression, like an imbecile’s face.”

Steegmuller’s departure from the original makes all the difference. Neither of the other versions puts the charge into the act of reading that his did. The rhetorical “indeed”/”in fine” interferes with the momentum of the description, as if Flaubert has appeared on the stage of his narrative to perform an introductory flourish. It’s true that Steegmuller imposes a hackneyed phrase when he makes the depths “unplumbed,” but even so, his is the more effective translation; the idea is not to stop to analyse or even pretend to analyse; it’s to strike the dominant note, sound it, ring it, or, to quote Brubeck, play it “dangerously” close to risking a mistake.

Emma’s Death

For all his devotion to “le mot juste,” Flaubert accomplishes another bravura, risk-taking coup in his description of Emma’s rush to death upon being rebuffed and humiliated by both her former lovers: “It suddenly seemed to her that fiery particles were bursting in the air, like bullets exploding as they fell, and spinning and spinning and finally melting in the snow among the tree branches.” Once she perceives the “abyss” of “her plight,” she knows what has to be done, and “with a heroic resolve that made her almost happy,” she runs “down the river path” on her way “to the pharmacy,” where she makes the pharmacist’s assistant give her the key to the cupboard in which the poisons are kept. Here Steegmuller once again adds something to the original. The translations by Davis and Marx-Aveling have Emma thrusting her hand into the blue jar, removing it full of white powder, which “she began to eat.” In Steegmuller she “seized the blue jar, tore out the cork, plunged in her hand, withdrew it full of white powder, and ate greedily.”

As before, Steegmuller stresses momentum and intensity over faithfulness to the original, which lacks the word “greedily” that so effectively catches the sense of Emma’s crazed urgency and once again makes Steegmuller’s reading the most powerful.

Life Imitates Art

Eleanor Marx-Aveling, by the way, was Karl Marx’s youngest daughter, Jenny Julia Eleanor “Tussy” Marx (1855-1898), who became her father’s secretary when she was 16, accompanying him to socialist conferences around the world, nursing him in his last illness, and publishing his unfinished manuscripts and the English language version of Das Kapital. An executive with the Social Democratic Federation, she supported various strikes, including the London Dock strike; she also organized the Gasworker’s Union and the International Socialist Congress in Paris, not to mention becoming an actress. Among other roles, she played Nora in a staged reading of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. After finding out that her partner, Edward Aveling, had secretly married a young actress, Eleanor chose to end her life in the manner Flaubert devised for Emma. She sent a maid to the chemist for padiorium and prussic acid, which she swallowed after writing two suicide notes. She was 43; Emma, according to most surmises, was not yet 30.

“When I described Mme Bovary’s poisoning,” Flaubert wrote long after the book was published, “the taste of arsenic in my mouth was so strong … that I vomited my dinner.”

With all the attention I’ve given to translations of Flaubert, I’m trusting the footnote in Frederick Brown’s 2006 biography for “vomited.” Brown is quoting from volume 3 of the Pléiade edition of the Correspondance. I wonder what Steegmuller would have come up with (no pun intended). I’ve been consulting the Gutenberg edition of Madame Bovary and some other online sources to check the various translations (or interpretations) of the original French. The “cracked kettle” fragment at the top is based on comparing different versions with Flaubert’s own by someone with nothing more than two years of college French, a love of Balzac, and a lifetime of subtitled French movies to go on.

The latest attempt to bring Madame Bovary to the screen is set to begin filming in Europe this spring, with Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) in the title role. The Steegmuller translation was most recently available in a Vintage Classics paperback. The epigraph from Brubeck is from the liner notes of the 1993 box set Time Signatures — A Career Retrospective.


Princeton University Orchestra Presents 2012 Concerto Winners

The Princeton University Music Department is accustomed to showing off its orchestra, but it is not often the community gets the chance to hear from the composition program. The University Orchestra, led by conductor Michael Pratt, presented an unusual collaboration with a University composer, combining vocal and orchestral performance with imaginative literature to create a full evening of music. The University Orchestra’s concert on Friday night (the program was repeated Saturday night) linked an innovative theatrical piece with three late 19th and early 20th-century giants.

Gilad Cohen, whose world premiere Dragon Mother opened the concert, is currently a Ph.D. candidate in composition at the University. It was fitting that the orchestra’s concert was started a bit earlier than usual to accommodate Dr. Cohen’s participation in the nearby Lewis Center for the Arts production of Kiss Me, Kate, as it was quite evident from the start of Dragon Mother that Cohen has a way with musical theater. The term “Dragon Mother” conjures many images these days, most recently as a mother pushing children to succeed at any cost. This was not at all the type of Dragon Mother librettist Sean Patterson had in mind; the fierce mother portrayed by soprano Martha Elliott was more over-protective than driven, surprised at her own overly-defensive qualities. Mr. Patterson’s text was very visual, and Ms. Elliott sent the text to the back of the hall, showing no trouble with the extensive and dramatic musical scenes. Uncharacteristically miked, Ms. Elliott sang with her usual clarity of tone and command of contemporary music, accompanied by a very rich orchestration. Especially at the end of the first section of text, one could imagine “spinning” visuals as the mother reflected back on her life and raising her daughter.

Cohen’s somewhat jazzy orchestration required precision from the instrumentalists, especially the winds. Principal oboist Bo-won Keum played an introspective solo in the opening section of the text, and lyrical trombone playing contrasted the more intense third section of text. Cohen gracefully depicted the passage of time on an English horn, played by Katrina Maxcy.

The Cohen piece in itself was a major accomplishment for the orchestra, but the ensemble did not stop there. Also featured in this performance were winners of the orchestra’s 2012 concerto competition. The concerti selected by the two winners, horn player Max Jacobson and violinist Caitlin Wood, were also challenging for the players and spellbinding for the audience. Mr. Jacobson, a senior at the University, played Richard Strauss’ Horn Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major as if he had known the piece all his life. With a father who was a horn player, Strauss composed well for the instrument, and the horn plays major roles in his tone poems. Mr. Jacobson started the concerto with clean hunting calls, following up with a lyrical, almost Mozartean melodic line. Ruth Ochs guest conducted this piece and she kept the tempo moving along, maintaining a triumphal character as light strings provided a subtle accompaniment. Mr. Jacobson played the solo line seamlessly as principal cellist Nathan Haley led the section in elegant playing which added to the orchestration. The solo line required a tremendous amount of air, but one would never have known it from Mr. Jacobson’s effortless playing.

Strauss’ orchestration can be bombastic in its rich Romantic texture, but not in the case of this concerto. The second movement in particular was marked by clean winds against pizzicato strings and a clean sectional cello line. In the third movement Allegro, Mr. Jacobson moved well through the quick solo line against playful interplay between two flutes.

The second soloist for the evening, sophomore violinist Caitlin Wood, who played Bartok’s Violin Concerto No. 2, commanded the stage like a real pro. Pratt started the concerto with a low rich sound in the violins and steady harp playing. The solo violin lines were disjunct, but did not sound it as Ms. Wood played with confidence. A gracefully climbing bassoon line was played by Louisa Slosar, with equally as agile lines from English horn player Drew Mayfield and hornist Kim Fried. The close of the first movement featured an impressive solo cadenza which picked up speed as Ms. Wood executed clean double stops.

These were two hefty concerti for the evening, and Mr. Pratt wisely chose to close the evening with a musical chance for the players to relax a bit in Copland’s El Salon Mexico. The trumpets had their chance to demonstrate crisp playing to infuse the work with its Mexican flavor, as the clarinets and bassoons played the rhythmic lines cleanly. As with any Princeton University Orchestra performance, the audience was heavily cheering on their friends, especially the soloists, as Mr. Pratt and the players brought this evening of challenging works to a close.


After 44 Years and Many Memories, An Old-Fashioned Doctor Calls It Quits

MEDICINE AND MEMORABILIA: Surrounded by a small section of his Brooklyn Dodgers collection, Dr. Carl C. Hoyler is preparing to pack it all up as he retires. The Princeton native, an internist, also counts the University of Pennsylvania and aviation among his varied interests, and both are represented on the walls of his soon to be vacated office on Witherspoon Street. (Photo by Lewis Bloom)

Carl C. Hoyler remembers when Route 1 had a speed limit of 35 and drivers sometimes had to stop to let cows from a dairy farm cross the road. That was back in the days when Princeton Medical Center was a small-town hospital and Dr. Hoyler, an internist, was one of the 120 or so physicians on staff.

“It was a small, county hospital, which was what I wanted,” he says, recalling his decision to practice in Princeton, his hometown, some 44 years ago. “Bigger is not better, at least in terms of a hospital. I’m sorry that it’s come to this — a big, mega-hospital. And that’s one of the reasons I’m retiring.”

Once the University Medical Center of Princeton added “at Plainsboro” to its name last May following its move to much expanded headquarters on Route 1, Dr. Hoyler knew it was time to close up shop. The 253 Witherspoon Street office building, which has housed his practice since 1969, is scheduled for demolition. His suite of offices, lined with photographs and memorabilia of his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers and his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, is slowly being dismantled.

“It actually feels very good,” Dr. Hoyler says of his pending retirement. “We have two grandchildren and one on the way, and there will be more time to visit them in California. But I’m really going to miss the patients. We’ve been sort of a family, and I’ve tried to make a supreme effort to get them to the right doctors. It’s very important.”

Most of Dr. Hoyler’s patients are senior citizens, some of whom have been with him since he started. “That was when Medicare just began,” he says. “Now close to 90 percent of them are on Medicare. They are very dear people. We’ve had a good run.”

Dr. Hoyler was five years old when his father, a physics professor at Lehigh University, accepted a job at RCA Labs and moved the family to Princeton. He went to elementary school in the building on Nassau Street that now houses Princeton University’s arts programs, and junior high at the old Quarry Street School, now the Waxwood Apartments. “That was a very important time in Princeton because of the integration that took place there in 1948,” he recalls. “Some of the best teachers I had were at that school.”

After graduating from Princeton High, Dr. Hoyler enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). He attended New York Medical College before returning to Penn for his residency, which he finished in 1969. He is currently the proud president of the class of 1959.

Dr. Hoyler knew, when he finished his training, that he wanted to come home to Princeton. “I always liked this town,” he says. “I was a townie. A lot of people on staff may have gone to Princeton University, but not many grew up here.” His first two associates were Marvin Blumenthal and Joel Feldscher [“another townie,” he says], and he remembers them fondly. “They were among the most brilliant men I ever met in my life,” he says.

As Dr. Hoyler’s  practice grew, so did his collection of Brooklyn Dodgers memorabilia. “There’s nothing here after 1957,” he says of his walls of photographs, magazine covers, and other relics of the famed baseball team. The year 1957, when the Dodgers abandoned Brooklyn for Los Angeles, “was a dark period in my life,” he continues. “I lived and died with that team. I can remember every game the Dodgers played between 1947 and 1957. I began collecting as a kid, and this is only a small part of what I have. I’ll probably give it to [the Baseball Hall of Fame at] Cooperstown. It’s really one of a kind. I could spend hours discussing every picture in here.”

While he won’t be making his daily trips to the office anymore, Dr. Hoyler, who lives with his wife near Drumthwacket, will still be using his bicycle with bright yellow fenders to travel around town. “I got this at a hospital rummage sale several years ago,” he says. “If you’re riding around Princeton, you don’t need a fancy 25-speed. Mine is a three-speed and it’s fine. I don’t wear a helmet because I actually think it’s dangerous. You lose your peripheral
vision. But I have the yellow fenders as a concession to my wife, who was worried about my safety. So everyone can spot me.”

Dr. Hoyler leaves 253 Witherspoon Street with mixed feelings. “This building probably should have been torn down years ago,” he says. “It’s archaic. So I’ll shed no tears when it comes down. I refer to it as the dungeon. But there have been good times here. It’s been a nice scene for many years. I think I’ve seen the good of medicine in this town.”


Windmill Turns Again at Historical Society’s Updike Farmstead Site; Unity Garden Dedicated

AT THE UPDIKE FARMSTEAD: Celebrants at the recent dedication of the Sipprelle Unity Garden included (from left): Scott Sipprelle, Sonja Michaluk, Kristin Appleget, and Dudley Sipprelle

The reinstallation of a windmill at the Updike Farmstead was cause for celebration at a recent party hosted by The Historical Society of Princeton. Guests admired the handiwork of E&R Pumps and Windmills, a Bethel, Pennsylvania-based restorer, and viewed three new exhibitions in the farmhouse galleries, including early photographs of the windmill.

The Historical Society of Princeton purchased the six-acre Updike Farmstead from the estate of Stanley Updike in 2004. The original windmill was taken down in 2006 for safety reasons. Its recent restoration was underwritten by contributions from Steve and Treby Williams and Ann Lee Saunders Brown, and managed by architect Ronnie Bregenzer, who donated her time and services. Other contributors included Baxter Construction, and project engineer Harrison Hamnett. The pump house was refurbished by Sam Pirone.

“The windmill, which retains the original tank structure, is an iconic feature of the farmstead that will be the centerpiece for new environmental programs on site,” said Curator of Education Eve Mandel. These include the newly-dedicated Sipprelle Unity Garden.

The Unity Garden, which was made possible by a grant from Scott and Tracy Sipprelle, is now “at the core of education programs on health and wellness,” said Ms. Mandel. Some of the produce grown there is donated to area organizations; in October, for example, student volunteers from the Princeton Friends School harvested spring mix lettuce that was used in a Cornerstone Community Kitchen (CCK) dinner at the Princeton Methodist Church. More recently, guests at the windmill party pitched in with juice boxes and paper products that were donated to the CCK, which works in partnership with the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.

“The Windmill Turns Slowly,” a 2005-2006 exhibition at the Society’s Bainbridge House location, featured photographs of the Homestead’s last working years, taken during the 1990s by Updike descendent Michael Johnson,

The history of the Updike farmstead dates back to 1890, when George Furman Updike and Mary Hartwick Updike settled on the site, which is located off Quaker Road.

Descending in the family line with George Furman Updike, Jr. and his wife Dora Drake Updike and their eight children, the farm was actively tilled until 1969, when grandsons Stanley and Sewell, sold the cropland to the Institute for Advanced Study with the understanding that the acreage would remain farmland. The Updike family retained six acres which included the farmhouse, barn, chicken coop, woodshed, corn crib, and orchard.

Through the 1990s, Stanley Updike and his sister, Sarah, maintained their farm routines. Stanley gathered eggs from the chicken coop, sprayed the peach trees, and split firewood. Sarah canned fruit, tended to the garden, and prepared their daily meals. The Historical Society of Princeton purchased the farm’s six acres from the family upon the deaths of Stanley and Sarah.

Updike Farmstead, which is currently open to the public one Saturday each month, will be open on December 15, from 12 to 4 p.m., when children will be invited to create a holiday card while parents browse the farmhouse galleries.

Quaker Road is open to Farmstead visitors from the Mercer Street side during open hours.

Other upcoming events at Bainbridge House include a December 28 commemoration of Woodrow Wilson’s birthday, 100 years after his election as president of the United States; a December 29 celebration of the USS Constitution (“Old Ironsides) and her captain, William Bainbridge; and a “Battle of Princeton Walk” on January 5.

Bainbridge House is located at 158 Nassau Street. Hours are Wednesday through Sunday, from noon to 4 p.m. To register for a program, call (609) 921-6748 ext. 102, or email eve@princetonhistory.org. Visitors to Bainbridge House through December 14 are asked to bring a new, unwrapped toy that will help a child celebrate the season.

For more information, visit www.princetonhistory.org, or call (609) 921-6748 x102.

Environmental Report Debated At Meeting

A report by an environmental consulting firm concluding that the Witherspoon Street site vacated by the University Medical Center of Princeton shows no evidence of soil or groundwater contamination was challenged Monday night at a special meeting of the Regional Planning Board. The study, carried out by Sovereign Consulting of Cherry Hill, also says that underground storage tanks at the former hospital site are not a major concern.

But an expert witness for the group Princeton Citizens for Sustainable Development, questioned by attorney Aaron Kleinbaum, said that the “due diligence” study carried out by Sovereign was not sufficient. The report examined records of underground storage tanks and the possibility of a septic system located under the parking garage, as well as asbestos in the empty building and hazardous materials on the site.

Allowing the developer AvalonBay to go ahead with its plan for a 280-unit apartment complex on the site without determining whether a septic system lies beneath the garage — which the Sovereign firm believes was either removed during construction of the garage or, if it exists, is now dormant — would not be the safest way to proceed, said James Peterson, who is president of Princeton Geoscience. “Septic issues still concern me,” he said. “Due diligence and a comprehensive site remediation report are two different things, with a very different approach.”

Mr. Peterson said that while the best time to have determined the existence of the septic tank was during the first phase of the investigation, it is still possible to delve further into the issue using hospital drawings and records that might show where septic tanks lie. “The lack of knowledge of the location of septic systems seems to me important,” he said. “If they’re unable to   find it, it’s not as if there’s no recourse. It’s very easy to conduct, and I would do that.”

The lengthy discussion, which included much comment and cross-examinations by AvalonBay senior vice president Ron Ladell, was the latest in a series that has the Planning Board trying to meet the December 15 deadline. Mr. Ladell has said the company is not willing to extend that deadline.

The next and final scheduled meeting on the proposal is tomorrow night. Should the Board decide it is not prepared to vote on the issue, it could be carried into 2013, which is when the current Board will be dissolved due to consolidation and a new one will be appointed. The Board’s attorney Gerald Muller has said that the Board can reject the proposal should AvalonBay refuse to grant an extension.

Board chair Wanda Gunning made time for members of the public who cannot attend tomorrow’s meeting to comment at Monday’s gathering. While much of the focus was on environmental issues, local residents also expressed their concerns about sustainability and design standards.

Architect Areta Pawlynsky drew enthusiastic applause for her brief power point presentation about the scope of the project. Showing the scale of the buildings as compared to existing houses in the neighborhood, she likened approval of the project as it stands to the famous and much maligned demolition of New York’s Penn Station in 1963. “This is not just an ordinary application,” she said. “This is our Penn Station moment.”

Harris Road resident Marco Gottardis, who has worked in hospital research laboratories, told the Board that standards today are much improved from those of the 1960’s and 1970’s. “There may be a contamination field that goes beyond the septic system,” he said, referring to waste from the hospital before stricter standards were in place.

Borough Council member Barbara Trelstad was the only citizen to speak in favor of the AvalonBay plan. “The hospital needs to sell the site now,” she said. “The chosen developer is before the Planning Board with a pliant application. It is smart growth. The questions raised tonight apply to any developer, and I think you need to bear that in mind,” adding that the project “provides affordable rental housing in our community.”

The Sovereign firm was hired last month to do an independent report on environmental documents related to the proposed complex. Kenneth Paul, a principal with the firm EcolScience, which AvalonBay hired to do its Phase 1 environmental report, testified that he is in full agreement with Sovereign’s conclusions. “Is there any evidence that the site is not suited [for the development]?,” Mr. Ladell asked him. Mr. Paul replied that there was not. “Are there any outstanding issues from an environmental point of view?,” Mr. Ladell continued. “There are not,” Mr. Paul said.

While the meeting was contentious at times, some who have issues with the AvalonBay plan came away feeling that some recognition of environmental concerns had been taken into account.

“Princeton Citizens for Sustainable Neighborhoods was pleased to see a thorough discussion at last night’s Planning Board meeting of what is the proper environmental remediation of the former hospital site before homes are built on it,” said Alexi Assmus, a member of the group, in an email. “We appreciate the public being given time to ask questions of the expert witnesses and applaud residents’ persistence in determining what testing has been performed to date, and their careful questioning of what the process will be to find possible contamination during construction. We thank AvalonBay for bringing their environmental experts to the evening meeting.”

Tomorrow night’s Planning Board meeting, at the Municipal Complex, begins at 7:30 p.m.

Council President To Be Named Soon; Officials Review Rules

Mayor-elect Liz Lempert and members of the new Princeton Council met on Friday morning in a closed session to discuss, Ms. Lempert said, “personnel matters.” Selecting a president for the governing body was presumably among the items on the agenda, though no final decision has been announced.

Ms. Lempert also reported that a “training meeting” was scheduled to take place this week. Transition Task Force attorney Bill Kearns would be present, she said, to “make sure everybody knows what all the details are in a borough form of government.”

Council members include current Township Committee members Bernie Miller and Lance Liverman; current Borough Council members Heather Howard, Jo Butler and Jenny Crumiller; and newcomer Patrick Simon, who has not held office before, but served on the Princeton Joint Consolidation and Shared Services Study Commission; and the Information and Technology, and Finance Subcommittees of the Transition Task Force. Ms. Lempert is a Township resident. All seven are Democrats.

Speculation about who the Council president will be has included Mr. Miller, perhaps the most seasoned member of the newly created Council, and Ms. Howard. There has also been some suggestion that the president should be someone from Borough Council who has had experience with that form of government.

The new Princeton municipality will consist of a council governing body of six representatives and a mayor, all of whom are elected at-large. The mayor will serve a term of four years while the council members will be elected for three year terms. The mayor will not vote, but will preside over the body and break tie votes.

Because the mayor and Council have not officially assumed their respective offices, no voting can occur at any of these meetings.

In the new year, the new mayor, with the consent of Council, will be selecting members to serve on the municipality’s successor Boards, Committees, and Commissions (BCCs), with the highest priority placed on those BCCs governed by state law. In the meantime, the Transition Task Force’s Committees and Commissions Subcommittee has asked those interested in being on a committee to use the volunteer form available online at the Borough and Township websites, or to mail print copies that can be obtained at the Princeton Public Library or municipal clerks’ offices.

The next meeting of the mayor-elect and Council open to the public will be on Wednesday, December 12, at 5 p.m. in the main meeting room of Township Hall. Another open meeting will follow, in the same place, on Thursday, December 20, at 7 p.m.

Consolidation Consultant Retained by Hopewell For “Strategic Review”

The Center for Governmental Research (CGR), the Rochester-based, independent, nonprofit management consulting organization that helped guide Princeton’s consolidation and transition processes, has been retained by Hopewell Township in Mercer County to “conduct a strategic review of efficiency opportunities in its administrative functions and service delivery,” according to CGR spokesperson Vicki Brown. The project is expected to be completed mid-2013, and will cost approximately $70,400.

“I think their work is terrific, and they’re terrific to work with,” said Princeton Consolidation Commission Chair Anton Lahnston of his experiences working with CGR.

CGR President Joseph Stefko is project director and a senior consultant to the new project team, and CGR Senior Associate Scott Sittig is serving as project manager for the Hopewell initiative. Both Mr. Stefko and Mr. Sittig participated in the Princeton engagement.

Although no specific requests for recommendations were made, Mr. Lahnston recalled speaking with at least one elected official from Hopewell when he attended a Princeton Public Library open meeting on consolidation. He also remembered talking with Mr. Stefko about Hopewell.

“As I understand it, their work is focused on how to create some better opportunities for shared services,” Mr. Lahnston said. “It makes perfectly good sense to me. There are some obvious similarities with Princeton, and CGR has become familiar with this geographic area and some of the ‘inuenendos’ of the State’s Department of Community Affairs.”

“The Hopewell project is a different type of study from Princeton, in that it seeks to identify internal efficiency opportunities,” confirmed Ms. Brown. “It does not concern consolidation, but, in a general sense, the objectives are similar: reviewing operations, service and governance options in an effort to enhance quality, generate cost savings and/or improve the overall effectiveness of the Township’s operations and services to the community.”

The CGR/Hopewell project will involve a “comprehensive” review of existing municipal services and processes as a baseline for developing “a range of options for enhancing efficiency, both town-wide and within individual departments,” said Ms. Brown. Particular attention will paid to finding opportunities to reduce costs to the Township and taxpayers; free up resources that can be reallocated to other municipal and community priorities; and “enable service-level enhancements within the existing cost structure.”

Hopewell Township serves a growing population of 17,300 in a 58-square-mile area 40 miles northeast of Philadelphia. It is a full-service municipality, providing a range of services including police, public works, tax collection, court, and tax assessment. It was incorporated by the New Jersey Legislature in 1798.

Charming Santa

Santa’s listening to the sweet nothings offered by Caroline Kinney, whose charms could melt a thousand snowmen. Children under 12 were invited to whisper holiday wishes in Santa’s ear at Morven Museum’s Cookies and Milk with Santa gathering. (Photo by Emily Reeves)