While the mainstream media is inebriated with the saga of Chris Christie’s political antics, there has been absolute silence from Mayor Hsueh/ George Borek/Linda Geevers/Fortune 500 business analyst Kamal Khanna, and the local media (WWP News/PrincetonPacket/Trenton Times) on the particulars associated with West Windsor’s own homegrown scandal.
We, too, contacted all the appropriate parties for assistance — from the NJ Attorney General and Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office to the US Attorney, Paul Fishman in both Newark and Trenton. Efforts were also made with the FBI, which investigates for the US Attorney. A case involving damages of $500,000 plus the loss of a revenue stream are ignored while in nearby Hamilton Township, its mayor was incarcerated for misdealings of $12,000 or so.
As the director of public safety in an election year, the directly elected, fully accountable Hsueh was uncommonly silent throughout the ordeal over 4 1/2 years.
With a 3 1/2 month police investigation and an annual $37 million municipal operating budget on their side, we were grossly outgunned by those whose agenda has not yet seen daylight. A municipal attorney (hired gun) with endless $300,000 billings (to date undisclosed to the public) with political ties to the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office (MCPO), the WWPD police report was quickly buried from public view. The irony on the eve of the report’s release was a proclamation by the municipal attorney that there was no crime and that damages did not exceed $10,000, both premises of which are false.
To the contrary, replacing the Grover windows and doors alone exceeded $40,000. We subsequently learned the official Grover report could become available if we paid an additional $2,500 for a Superior Court judge’s review and release.
The contents of the Grover House could NOT be bartered to Wengryn Restorations because the West Windsor Historical Society had no legitimate claim to the public property. One cannot give away property it does not own. There have been zero IRS accounting filings and no 1099 issued to Wengryn from West Windsor Township, according to filed OPRAs.
Our unpaid volunteer Grover Homestead Restoration Committee operated in a vacuum and had to do its own fact-gathering culminating in a 92-page report. Our report was documented on a CD including a condensed, abridged 12-page summary printed and presented to each Council person.
During the final Grover hearing on July 8, 2013, Borek, Khanna, and Geevers proclaimed they did not have sufficient information nor a plan from the Grover Committee. I have an E-mail to the contrary from Council President Borek that all of his questions had been answered to his satisfaction.
At a subsequent Council meeting, I distributed blank sheets of paper to the mayor, business administrator, Borek, Khanna, and Geevers for THEIR plans after 4 1/2 years. Of course I shortly thereafter collected blank responses from those who presided over the house’s demise.
Since a picture saves countless words, I submit that a side-by-side picture of the stately Grover House vs. the corpse of a 170-year-old birthplace of an American military hero is topical. There is a large empty space where a once-proud residence partnered with Mother Nature to shelter both our past and our future. Tommy Grover was never afforded his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It would be in the public interest — and newsworthy — if the ultimate question could be asked of EACH of those elected officials entrusted with the fiduciary responsibility to protect and preserve taxpayer assets: WHY? What is/was the plan for the Grover House? Are we taxpayers and residents not worthy of a response?
Pete Weale
