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Vol. LXV, No. 28
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Wednesday, July 13, 2011
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Vol. LXV, No. 28
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Wednesday, July 13, 2011
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Ralph Perry
Random Road
Elizabeth B. Duffy
Former Princeton Resident
Joanne Dix
Snowden Lane
Eric Mihan PHS ’56
Oxford, Maryland
To the Editor
After years of neglect, there are now two proposals in front of the Board of Education concerning what to do with the Valley Road School (VRS) building.
The Valley Road School-Adaptive Reuse Committee (VRS-ARC), whose plans were described in the July 6 issue of Town Topics (“Borough Council Hears Presentation On Valley Road Building”), proposes to convert the building to a Community Center for use by educational non-profit organizations. It will be self sustaining and done at no costs to the Princeton taxpayer.
The other proposal was submitted by the Fire House/First Aid-Rescue Squad/Corner House group (Fire House et al), whose plan requires tearing down the historical VRS building and replacing it with an expanded 34,000 sq. ft. building, to be financed by a 20-year bond issued by Princeton Township.
What are the costs to the Princeton taxpayer?
The VRS-ARC proposal, which is financed by public donation, will not cost the taxpayers anything.
The Fire House et al group’s proposal will require about $500,000 to tear down the building and $8,500,000 to construct a new building (at a conservative estimate of $250/sq. ft. to build a 34,000 sq. ft. new building). This will require the Township to issue a 20-year $9,000,000 bond whose net interest cost will be at least 3.5 percent. Thus, annual interest cost will be $315,000 (3.5 percent x $9 million), amortization of the principal ($9 million/20) will be $450,000/yr., for a total cost to the taxpayer of $765,000 annually for the next 20 years.
Moreover, even in its sad state of disrepair the building is usable, with 30-40 people working there daily, and it has a value of probably more than $3,000,000. The VRS building belongs to the Princeton taxpayer, and the Fire House et al group proposes to tear it down and throw it in the dump.
Finally, if the Board of Education does not take action, the building eventually will deteriorate to the point where this $3,000,000 public asset will be worthless. The taxpayer should beware.
Ralph Perry
Random Road
To the Editor:
Earlier this summer, during our first heat wave, I took my son and his friend downtown to visit the fountain and to get some ice cream. I thought it would be a nice treat for the dog if I were to bring him as well — let him cool off in the shade, dig himself a nice little dust-bed under the yew bushes, and spend some time out on the town. In the hectic few moments that it took to get from the schoolyard to a parking spot on a sunny street in town, I completely forgot that I had brought the dog along with us. So I trotted off to the fountain with the kids in tow and left the dog locked in the car with the windows closed. I can state with certainty that the temperature inside the car when I parked it was 68 degrees.
Having forgotten to bring money for ice cream, I headed back to the car. I found animal control and the police hard at work trying to rescue my dog, trapped in what had become a sauna. The time remaining on the meter showed that I’d been gone 20 minutes. The car, air-conditioned to 68 degrees only 20 minutes earlier, had reached an inside temperature of 110.
We were lucky; the dog lived, perhaps only because the car started out so cold inside. Studies show that temperatures in a car parked in the hot sun can rise as much as 40 degrees in one hour. A dog’s normal body temperature is between 101 and 102.5 degrees, and dogs cannot dispel heat from their bodies as efficiently as we can. Once a dog becomes over-heated by only a few degrees, it will begin to suffer nerve damage, liver damage, brain damage, heart problems, and then death.
Studies have shown that cracking windows does almost nothing to slow the rise in temperature inside your car. Even on comparatively cool days, the inside of a car heats up to dangerous levels — on a 72-degree day, a car was reported to have reached 116 degrees inside of an hour.
Failure to protect your dog from the weather is a crime, and the risks to your pet are severe. “Just for a minute,” “the windows are cracked,” “I’m parked in the shade” — none of these will protect your pet! And even my excuse — “things got hectic on the way to our destination and I simply forgot the dog was there” — just doesn’t cut it.
Please remember, “left in the car” is no place for your pets!
Elizabeth B. Duffy
Former Princeton Resident
Editor’s Note: The events described in the letter occurred when the writer still resided in Princeton. The submission of this letter to the local papers was part of her sentencing, which was delivered by Judge Bonnie Goldman.
To the Editor:
I came way too close to hitting a child on his bicycle recently. Probably nine- or ten-years-old, he was riding as fast as his legs could go and not wearing a helmet. He crossed the road at a crosswalk with no hesitation. He did not stop at the stop sign. I only saw him when he was halfway across the road and was able to brake. Lately I have noticed a lot of parents out riding with their children and that’s great. More often than not the kids are instructed to cross at crosswalks while on their bikes. School crossing guards stop traffic for cycling families to cross in the crosswalk. All this is actually against the law. Bicycles are to follow the same rules of the road as cars. They are to stop at stop signs and signal when making a turn, and bikers are to get off their bikes and walk their bikes across. For children it is essential. For adults on bikes who think they have the right of way in a crosswalk, this too could end in a tragedy.
Joanne Dix
Snowden Lane
To the Editor:
The adages “look before you leap,” and “act in haste, repent at leisure” have surely been followed by the Princetons in considering consolidation. When I read in the June 29 Town Topics that the Joint Consolidation Shared Services Study Commission recommended consolidation, and the governing boards of the municipalities will consider this recommendation, I realized that this subject has been under consideration since my high school years in Princeton. That was in the mid 1950s. Why the rush?
Eric Mihan PHS ’56
Oxford, Maryland