Councilman Charles Morgan and other residents vented their frustration with Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh’s leadership following his State of the Township address.
Morgan accused the mayor of looking at the township through rose-colored glasses, citing the dismal appearance of Route 571 and the InterCap lawsuit threatening the township’s redevelopment area.
“Things aren’t quite as rosy as we’d like to think,” Morgan said, referring to the mayor’s speech in which he highlighted various capital improvements and real estate ventures that have brought new tenants and businesses to the town. “We do have a bit of a mess downtown. The Ellsworth Center is falling apart, and we’re not dealing with that.”
Morgan also pointed to what he said was a flawed process for adopting the redevelopment plan, which went from the council to the Planning Board and back to the council. The Planning Board also rushed its hearings and ignored input from the public, and there were groups that wanted to be heard at the Planning Board who had to come to the council to try to voice their concerns, Morgan alleged. The Hillier contract was rushed through without thorough review, he added. The end result was a flawed plan, he said.
“We’re paying for this now with the InterCap litigation,” Morgan said. “It is not good for our pocketbook.”
In the lawsuit, InterCap argues that the process by which the town determined that the 350-acre Princeton Junction train station area was in need of redevelopment was faulty for a number of reasons, including failing to comply with a requirement that towns notify property owners ahead of the process that redevelopment could include condemnation of their properties. InterCap alleges that the township did not provide this notification.
Morgan said that because “we’re suffering from a lack of leadership,” the township has already lost the first round of litigation in court. “Why? We did not give notice to the property owners,” he said. He also said that while there was no notice requirement at the time the redevelopment area was designated, a ruling came down a few years later — before the redevelopment plan was adopted. At that time, the township’s lawyers should have picked up on the new requirement. “Where were our lawyers?” Morgan jabbed.
At that, Township Attorney Michael Herbert objected to Morgan. “There are statements being made of a political nature, jeopardizing our legal position.”
Morgan continued by criticizing the administration’s fiscal achievements, alleging that maintaining the township’s AAA bond rating is costing the average taxpayer $214 each year — an allegation the administration has repeatedly disputed, saying the township has actually saved $800,000 as a result.
Still, “we’ve got real issues around financial mismanagement,” said Morgan, who also questioned why Business Administrator Robert Hary was paid $135,000 — more than the $118,000 paid to former administrator Chris Marion — without seeing if there was someone just as qualified at a lower price. The mayor has said the higher salary accounts for Hary’s continued work in the health department on top of his role as administrator.
Morgan wasn’t alone in expressing his opinion about the mayor. Residents took the opportunity to criticize Hsueh during public comment before the speech, including a resident group protesting a proposed cell tower ordinance (see story, page 16).
Former council candidate Andrew Hersh, looking in advance at a copy of the mayor’s upcoming speech, said he wanted to understand how the mayor has prioritized Route 571, when buildings remain boarded up, and wanted to understand how the transit village is beneficial to residents.
He called on the mayor to “admit” that parking could be brought on site without the need for a transit village, and accused the mayor of “stonewalling” various residents, including those opposed to the cell tower and himself.
“I want you to do your job and respond to council’s requests,” he said, referring to Morgan’s arguments in the lawsuit. “I think you do not like ideas that are not your own.”
He also said he has seen other towns keep a flat budget with no increases and questioned why the mayor and administration could not do the same. Hersh also called on Hsueh to pay his own attorney fees.
Hersh called for the mayor to resign if he could not accomplish all of those things, inciting booing from Hsueh’s supporters. The disruption caused Council President George Borek to gavel the audience into silence so the meeting could proceed.
Later in the evening, when Hersh commented on other matters, one woman even told him to “Get a life,” which caused Hersh to react, and eventually caused Borek to intervene again.
