Christmas has come early for West Windsor politicos after first term Councilwoman Kristina Samonte resigned effective May 12, which opens an interim seat that Council will fill at its meeting Monday, June 8.
Samonte is moving to northern Virginia with her husband and son to be closer to extended family members living in that area. At her final meeting on May 11 she thanked residents, township staff, Council, as well as her mother, who drove down to babysit on Mondays when Council meetings occurred. Council also issued a proclamation acknowledging her service.
Township residents have until Tuesday, May 26, to apply for the vacant Council seat. Council will interview candidates, who will also be given five minutes to make a public presentation at the June 8 Council meeting. At the same meeting Council will then vote to appoint an interim Council member. The interim term expires December 31. If no one is appointed within 30 days of the resignation date, the seat will remain vacant. For complete instructions and an application, visit www.westwindsornj.org.
Former school board president Hemant Marathe, who ran for mayor in the 2013 municipal election, has confirmed that he will apply for the position. Marathe has previously expressed interest in running for a Council seat this fall.
Including Samonte’s recently vacated seat, three Council positions are up for election this year. The terms for Council president Bryan Maher, a Republican, and Council member George Borek, a Democrat, also expire at the end of the year.
Though neither Maher nor Borek has yet announced that he will seek re-election, it seems likely that the 2015 West Windsor municipal election will be just as crowded as the contentious affair that took place two years ago.
In the 2013 election, a non-partisan opposition slate featured Rick Visovsky running for mayor, and Debbie Hepler and Martin Whitfield vying for Council seats. According to campaign manager Rocky Proccacini, the same slate is exploring a possible run for the three open Council seats.
Expressing disappointment with both the Democrat and Republican township officials, Proccacini says the independent candidates want to offer residents an alternative. “We want full transparency for taxpayers,” Proccacini says. “They should have a right to know how the money is being managed and mismanaged.”
He says Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests are not answered properly, with long delays and responses that say the information being sought does not exist.
“If this party runs as independents,” Proccacini says, “We would like to make West Windsor a lot more user-friendly.” He maintains that the town could improve in that regard, “as anyone who has applied for a building permit will tell you.”
In the 2011 municipal elections, Borek, Maher, and Samonte finished within 14 votes of each other, with Borek collecting the top number of votes at 2,071. Runner-up Lindsay Diehl, who ran alongside Borek and Samonte, finished 14 votes shy of Samonte.
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This year’s municipal budget was finally adopted, while Council also approved resolutions relating to pedestrian safety and the proposed Project Freedom site at the May 11 meeting. It was also the last meeting for Councilwoman Kristina Samonte, who has served since 2012 and is relocating to Virginia.
Pedestrian-activated beacons and a crosswalk will be installed at Hawk Drive and Clarksville Road, the intersection where Xuande Guo was fatally struck last October. Council approved a shared services agreement with Mercer County, which has jurisdiction over Clarksville Road. The two parties will evenly split the installation cost, which is $18,470. Council previously passed a resolution in December urging Mercer County to implement additional safety measures.
A procedural extension of a development agreement between the township and Project Freedom was also approved. The previous 30-month agreement, passed in 2012, had expired. Under the agreement the township would provide $250,000 in affordable housing funding for a Project Freedom development. The planned site is a 10-acre subdivision of the Maneely site owned by Toll Brothers off Bear Brook Road.
Affordable housing committee chair Jean Jacobsohn urged Council to extend the agreement, which she says was many years in the making. “The committee and myself have all wanted to recommend this,” Jacobsohn says.
According to land use manager Sam Surtees, Toll Brothers will donate the 10-acre subdivision to the township once the company’s mixed-use Maneely project is approved. The township would then give the parcel to Project Freedom.
Surtees says Toll Brothers is tentatively expected to go before the Site Plan Review Advisory Board on Monday, June 8, and after that meet with the Planning Board on July 8.
2015 Budget passed. A public hearing was held on the 2015 municipal budget, which Council subsequently adopted. The budget was introduced April 2 and the state recently concluded its tri-annual township audit (The News, April ). The total budget is $38,099,300, a slight increase from 2014. The municipal tax rate will remain at 38 cents per $100 of assessed value. Council also adopted an ordinance approving a 1.5 percent cap bank, the figure authorized this year by the state Division of Local Government Services.
The zero increase in tax rate (in contrast to the 3.06 percent increase recommended by the administration) was achieved by increasing anticipated revenues for construction fees and drawing nearly $400,000 more from the fund balance than the administration had recommended. Council also cut $140,000 from various expense items. The vote on the budget was 4-0, with George Borek absent.
Penn Lyle Open Space Acquisition. Council passed two ordinances finalizing the acquisition of 10.4 acres of open space at 125 Penn Lyle Road, near the intersection with Village Road West. The acquisition cost is $455,500, and Mercer County open space grants are expected to offset the cost by one half.
Fencing Easements. After review by the township engineer, Council approved easement modifications that permit fencing construction over drainage easements for four households. The addresses are 6 Woodland Court; 29 Van Wyck Drive; 77 Danville Drive; and 2 Stonewall Drive.
Contracts and Appointments. In other news the resolution to appoint Zain Sultan to the Human Relations Council was pulled from the agenda before the meeting. Council also approved a contract with Top Line Construction Corp. to resurface the Municipal Complex parking lot for $377,022; and a contract with Diamond Construction for concrete improvement work at the Princeton Junction Volunteer Firehouse and the public works facility pole barn for $206,600.
