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Vol. LXI, No. 42
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
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Vol. LXI, No. 42
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
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On any given day, Roger Martindell can be found in his Nassau Street law office dealing with social service problems or business problems, many of which center around clients in lower-economic circles, while then alternately pondering governmental issues that he faces as an elected official — largely because he said the two roles he tackles are somewhat transferable.
Seamlessly moving from speaking Spanish to English, and back again, Mr. Martindell said the “special challenges” of his clients give him added insight, when it comes to housing, discrimination, and employment issues. Take the University Medical Center at Princeton’s proposed move to Plainsboro, for example:
“I was not particularly sanguine about that move to Route 1 because it would impact a portion of our population that doesn’t have cars.”
To be sure, Princeton HealthCare System, the hospital’s parent entity, has a transportation component built in to its state approval to relocate, but Mr. Martindell said that it’s important for him to continue playing the devil’s advocate, asking questions from an alternate perspective.
A Democrat seeking his seventh term on Council, Mr. Martindell points to a “libertarian streak” that has grown since he entered public office. “Local government does a good job of providing basic municipal services: police protection, fire protection, garbage collection, etc. because we follow tried and true strategies that have been developed over literally hundreds of years.
“But local government doesn’t do as well in dealing with emerging trends or unique circumstances, and it sometimes make matters worse,” he said.
Mr. Martindell gets right to the point: “As a governing body, we have a long way to go in learning how to negotiate with other stakeholders in our community. We are really quite unpracticed at it,, and could benefit from spending some time in fixing our educational skills.”
So in one sentence, Mr. Martindell, speaking deliberately, addresses his concern with Nassau HKT, the developer in the Borough’s stalled downtown development project, Princeton University, and Princeton Township.
“The result is that we don’t get the best deal we can for our taxpayers,” Mr. Martindell said. As a sitting member of the governing body he is critical of, he said Council would be better served drawing attention to more problems, and then coming up with strategies. “It’s not about having more meetings,” he said, “but having increased research over time so we have proven data and reach a reasonable conclusion based on that. We haven’t done that.”
Mr. Martindell’s role as somewhat of a rapscallion on Council has been consistent over time, but has become more active in recent years as the Borough has been involved in frustrating negotiations with Nassau HKT in trying to get a five-story building built on Borough property downtown.
“I take a rigorous position on many issues, knowing the chance of having my colleagues agree with me is slim.
“But in consistently pursuing a more aggressive plan, I find better results than simply being in the middle of the pack. I can’t devote all my time to traditional persuasion,” he said, adding with a smile that the most efficient way to persuade is “needling.
“Some people resent it, and I apologize to them, but we’ve got to keep things moving forward.”
A former vice president of the Princeton Community Democratic Organization, and a member of the then-Civil Rights Commission (now the Human Services Commission), Mr. Martindell said his breaking with what he feels is the status quo of Borough government is a means to move the entire government, and town, forward.
Princeton University, for example, is of particular concern to the Councilman: “Rather than wait for the school’s voluntary municipal payments agreement to expire, wouldn’t it be prudent for us to start working now on a new agreement and how we intend to achieve it?”
For the past several years, Mr. Martindell has pushed the idea of forming a committee in dealing with Princeton University, but instead the Borough, he said, has continued University-related financial negotiations on a Mayor-University administrative level. “Now is that working for us? While that makes for a nice photo-op, we really need to have a broad-based community discussion. We shouldn’t have increases in thousands of dollars, but increases of hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars on an annual basis.
“We’re talking about one of the richest universities in the world, and I’m looking after the Borough taxpayer here,” he said, pointing to the proposed long-term development in the school’s proposed arts neighborhood, which straddles the Princeton Borough-Township line, encompassing the Alexander Street corridor and the Dinky station.
Mr. Martindell, a Princeton native with a 16-year-old son at Princeton High School, suggested that Borough Council should begin “embracing the opportunities that face us, rather than work with slogans.