Having already turned over to township officials data his professionals collected during his own traffic study, Intercap Holdings CEO Steve Goldin is saying that another firm he hired to perform a fiscal impact analysis regarding redevelopment at the Princeton Junction train station is having difficulty accessing township officials to gather data.##M:[more]##
Goldin told the council during its March 31 meeting that he hired TischlerBise, a fiscal, economic, and planning consulting firm based in Bethesda, MD, to perform a fiscal impact analysis relating to redevelopment. Usually, he said, the firm takes a copy of the town budget as part of doing the analysis.
But when the firm’s representatives tried to get in touch with about six or seven township department heads to clarify some of the questions they had, “they were told they required the approval of a higher authority,” Goldin said.
Goldin requested that officials from the firm be able to meet with the department heads for about 40 minutes on either Monday, April 14, or Tuesday, April 15.
“We’re just trying to do the best job we can so the residents can have a proper financial impact study,” Goldin said.
After the rest of public comment, Council President Will Anklowitz asked whether council members wanted to respond to anything, but none did.
Outside the meeting, Goldin said he was disappointed no one responded to his request, and said he felt township officials “can’t, on the one hand,” say they want credible and thorough information, but “not provide their professionals access to our professionals.”
He pointed to criticism of a previous analysis performed by ERA. “Generally everybody — whatever side of the issue they were on — was not happy with it,” he said, adding that critics felt it wasn’t thoroughly researched and was missing data.
“How are we supposed to do a thorough fiscal impact study that will benefit everyone in the township” without township officials cooperating and providing the necessary information, he asked.
He said TischlerBise has done over 900 similar studies around the nation, and that the firm’s representatives told him they have never had problems attaining information from governments elsewhere.
In response, Council President Will Anklowitz says the matter was discussed in executive session because it dealt with legal issues and strategy. On a personal note, however, Anklowitz says he is skeptical about accepting Goldin’s free traffic studies.
“We’re not obligated in any way for it,” he said. He says he’s not surpised Goldin is expecting the township to work with him and give him data, especially since Goldin has already turned over data from his professionals’ own traffic study weeks ago. Now, Goldin is “saying, ‘Look, I gave you free data, and now I want you to cooperate with me,’” Anklowitz said. “He wants the township to do what he wants us to do. The taxpayers are not going to pay for giving free data to any private entity.”
Further, Anklowitz said, referring to the Open Public Records Act, “if he wants to make a request for documents, by all means, he should have them.”
Anklowitz says that from what he understands, the financial firm hired by Goldin was looking for data from the township. “His economic epxert wants to analyze the data the township aldready had. They want to do an analysis on it. They want to do live interviews with our department heads. That’s not how it works.”
Further, Anklowitz said that developments don’t happen without some form of government review. “Whenever developers come in to make proposals, they provide their things to the township, and then the township undertakes its objective and legal review of those things,” he said. “The taxpayers don’t pay for that.”
