A unified Council-Mayor, as well as “culture changes” in the way the township does business are in store for West Windsor as Kamal Khanna heads into the upcoming year as Council President.
Khanna, a businessman and the first Indian American elected to council in West Windsor, hopes to lead the council through a tough budget season while at the same time, improving the township’s marketability to businesses looking to move here.
“The council and the mayor have to work together,” he said. “If they are unified, then we can attract more commercial ratables. We can get the projects done quickly. If they’re not unified, projects will take forever.”
Khanna takes the helm of a council that has at times been at odds with the mayor, and with each other, especially when it came to the process of creating the redevelopment plan.
Khanna was elected to his first term on council in May, 2009, just months after the council adopted a redevelopment plan for the 350-acre Princeton Junction train station redevelopment area, the most controversial topic in the township over the past decade.
With the redevelopment plan in place and a settlement with developer Steve Goldin of InterCap Holdings already adopted, the immediate focus for council now is on the budget, which is expected to be introduced sometime in February (see story, page 16).
Khanna says he will use his experience in running a business to help with his new role on council.
Khanna spent 10 years at Dupont as a business analyst, planner, and efficiency engineer before founding Sante Classics, a clothing manufacturing and distribution company based in New York since 1977. Khanna serves as president and CEO of the company, which now has operations worldwide.
Khanna earned his bachelor’s degree in India, but earned his master’s degree in engineering and management from the University of Florida. He originally moved to Florida from India, but moved to West Windsor more than 30 years ago to start his new business after leaving Dupont.
“In the garment business, your first choice is always New York, so I had to move closer to New York,” he said. “West Windsor was one of the best communities to live in because of the school system and the train station.”
His wife, Veena, has been working as a physician here since 1978, and the couple raised two children, Sanjay and Monica. Khanna’s family loves West Windsor so much that at one point, Khanna and his wife, his parents, and their children were all living in West Windsor. His brother and his family have also made West Windsor their home.
His parents — his father was a veterinarian in India — came to West Windsor from India in 1995 and lived in West Windsor for the rest of their lives.
Khanna’s daughter, Monica, who has a master’s degree in recreational planning, and her husband, Martin Reichert, a liberal arts professor at New York University, also decided to stay in West Windsor, where they live in the Estates at Princeton Junction. Their children, Max, 12; Leo, 10; and Karli, 8, all attend WW-P schools.
Khanna’s son, Sanjay, lives in New York and is a professional singer, songwriter, and composer.
Khanna says he got into politics when he began campaigning for Seema Singh when she was running for Senate in 2008, and for Linda Greenstein’s campaign for state Assembly in 2008. “I went into public service to pay back to the society that gave me so much,” he said.
As a key campaigner in West Windsor, he also joined Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh’s own outreach team. “I joined, and after that, one thing led to another,” he said. As Khanna got more involved with the campaign and with West Windsor politics, Hsueh asked him to run for council.
“Since I have a full-time business in New York, it was a challenge for me initially,” he said. “ I quickly adjusted my schedule for running my business and running my campaign. The more I got into it, the more I liked it.”
Over the last year, Khanna has not missed a meeting and said he gained valuable experience.
Khanna has been pushing the idea of the efficiency study (see story page 16) since taking office. The first phase of that study took place and will be presented to the council next month. The study compares the municipality to similar municipalities.
While some council members have recently said they expected more from the efficiency study, Khanna says the study is only in its first phase. “For every department and subdepartment, it will show you where you stand compared to like municipalities,” he said. “Then that will tell you whether you are doing good or bad compared to the other municipalities under similar conditions.”
His hope is that through these studies, he and his colleagues can find better ways to run the township on fewer resources, which is especially helpful during the upcoming budget season.
At Dupont, Khanna analyzed the efficiency of various departments. “If they were not performing well, I’d look at what we could do to make them better,” he said.
When it comes to the analysis at the township, “once we understand the initial study, then we will identify the need for further studies and justify further expenditures.”
The efficiency study can help the council in making decisions on what to cut during the upcoming budget season, he said. “To stay within the [2 percent] cap, it’s going to be a major challenge,” said Khanna. “What I would like to see is that we come up with a budget that is reasonably capped, but we should still stay a full-service town. I don’t want to cut services to meet the cap.”
Among Khanna’s other goals is to get the Indian community more involved. “The Indian communities are very diversified,” he said. “One of my goals is to bring them all together so that they are a driving force. They are all very receptive.”
Khanna also wants to attract more commercial ratables. “If a new business comes into town and wants to be established, what kind of cooperation do they get from the town?” he said. “If the town is receptive to them, the people will say West Windsor is a great town.”
“In the last couple of years, many businesses have come to the town, including BlackRock,” he added.
Khanna also says he will pay attention to public input. “I’m asking the mayor to periodically give updates on all the projects that are going on and not going on, so that the public stays informed in our council setting,” said Khanna.
By doing this, Khanna hopes it is one step toward also unifying the council and the mayor.
Khanna said he will be more lenient when it comes to enforcing the time limits on comments. “I have the patience to listen to them, whether it’s the mayor and administration, council people, or the public,” he said. “I want to hear what they have to say so we can incorporate that into our decision-making process.”
