##M:[more]##1.) The last Hillier plan has some truly attractive elements, but Council and the Township should reject the 1,”000 housing units. We fought Toll over fewer housing units than this. And we have been buying open space to prevent housing. Why invite all this housing into West Windsor?
We need more parking for West Windsor residents, a nice main street with some retail, and some housing, but not on the scale that has been proposed. We must move the Amtrak power substation out of the middle of Princeton Junction.
We don’t need a regional transportation center in the middle of Princeton Junction. We should put a parking facility for non-West Windsor residents at the corner of Quaker Bridge road and the Amtrak tracks connected to our train station by a high speed shuttle along the Amtrak right of way (similar to the shuttles at major airports). But any increase in parking capacity for non-West Windsor residents should be timed to arrive only after the new tunnels under the Hudson have been completed.
Remote parking for non-West Windsor residents will reserve the parking at the train station for West Windsor residents, will remove the traffic from the center of Princeton Junction, and will provide easy access to Routes 1, 295, and 95.
We should direct Hillier to undertake a true charrette (or series of charrettes, if necessary) without any increase in their compensation that will give our residents the opportunity (denied so far) to say what they really want. After a full and fair opportunity for public input, Hillier should then present a revised plan with the significantly smaller scale that full and fair public input assuredly will demand.
2.) West Windsor should build its fair share of affordable housing. We should not allow housing that is affordable to buy but is not affordable to live in. Affordable housing should not be too cold and too expensive with poor insulation that produces astronomical utility bills.
Affordable housing units must be mixed in with market units, rather than being segregated by themselves in an “affordable housing locale.” The affordable units should look like the market units and they should include the basic amenities that any market unit possesses.
3.) We should continue to buy open space. Once it is gone, it is gone forever. Purchasing open space is good. It saves the taxes needed to support the school children living in the homes that would otherwise be built on the land. We need it for active and passive recreation as well as farming. And it is an important habitat for wildlife.
We should keep our open space tax, but only to the extent necessary to get matching grants from the county and the state.
We should pursue private funding, as is done in most of the rest of the country, in lieu of spending tax dollars. Private funding can be used for purchases and to create endowments to support maintenance of our open space. A private campaign to create those endowments will allow us to reduce the tax burden on our residents.
We should implement the standards and practices promoted by the Land Trust Alliance for the evaluation and selection of our new open space projects in an environment of higher land costs and scarcity of attractive parcels. We should apply those principles to our stewardship and land management with respect to our existing parcels of open space.
We must recognize that open space comes with maintenance costs. We must assess the budget maintenance implications of any purchase prior to its acquisition and commit the funds needed for maintenance without compromising our ability to purchase the parcels that we deem important.
I don’t trust our government to provide continuing protection from future development. Our government-owned open space will be subject to unrelenting political pressures accompanying a growing population that needs housing in a land-scarce environment over the next couple of hundred years. We risk losing our open space to political expediency unless we act to prevent it.
4.) Open and transparent government is a major issue. Too much is discussed behind closed doors.
The most prominent example is the Hillier redevelopment project. Despite claims of an open and democratic process, it has been a closed, structured process that has deflected input from the community in favor of a predetermined project. We were promised charrettes but got workshops with limited choices.
We need better communications. This is connected to the need for an open and transparent government. The West Windsor website needs a lot of improvement. Channel 27 needs to be given more resources so that we can broadcast more programming. The Council chamber audio is terrible and should be fixed immediately. We should start televising Planning Board and Zoning Board meetings. I support adding a full time staff person to take over responsibility for the web site and Channel 27.
Effective government is another issue that is also connected to the need for an open and transparent government.
The Planning Board ordinance review subcommittee has not been active even though numerous ordinances are needed to implement the Master Plan. The list of ordinances that need to be drafted is long and growing. The Planning Board is outside the purview of Council. Council can initiate ordinances that it can send to the Planning Board for review, but Council is at a disadvantage due to the lack of the staffing and resources that are available to the Planning Board. We need to negotiate a solution with the Administration.
Council should hold Town Hall meetings at least quarterly that are open to the public on any issue that anyone wants to discuss. Those meetings will facilitate open and effective governing .
5.) I led a product development project after which I built a new business at Prudential Financial that grew to $14 billion by the time that I retired. That experience taught me a lot about project management and business development. It also taught me that no project should be funded unless it is preceded by a business plan that provides a detailed projection of expenses and revenues. The management of the Hillier redevelopment project is remarkable for its failure to deliver the details needed to make informed decisions.
I am the only member of Council to be awarded the Thomas Jefferson award for service to the community. I am the only incumbent who has been on Council for the last two years and has taken the job seriously enough to attend the classes for the Elected Officials Certificate Program offered by the Rutgers Center for Government Services.
I have demonstrated a willingness to vote for what the community wants even though I have publicly stated a different view before understanding the majority perspective and prior to my vote.
I have an MBA from Pepperdine University, a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Vanderbilt, a BA from Wesleyan University, a CLU (Chartered Life Underwriter), and APC (Advanced Pension Certificate) from the American College.
I never fail to return a phone call or an E-mail promptly. When I disagree, I do so agreeably.
I believe in fundamental fairness without regard to “turf” — I was the first president of Council to invite the mayor, attorney, and business administrator onto the dais rather than keeping them in the “well” with their backs to the audience during Council meetings. That is as it should be.
