The Grover Farm house is still scheduled for demolition by the township, but it has at least received a stay of execution following an outpouring of public support for the building at the West Windsor Council meeting on May 29.
The Council did not vote on another recommendation from Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh’s administration to have the Grover family house torn down. The vote would have granted a $60,000 contract to Robert T. Winziger Inc. to carry out the demolition.
Council decided instead to form a committee of 9 or 10 people with experience in construction, along with representatives from the township administration and Council, to study the matter.
The Grover farmstead consists of the house, red barns, and 88-acres of farmland. It was part of West Windsor’s first open-space purchase, dating back to 1994, when the township bought the property from the Grovers for $3.78 million.
The family continued to live at the home until December, 2008, when Leroy Grover died. His wife vacated the home two months later.
It wasn’t until November, 2011, that the township shut off the water, electric, cable, and gas. In February, the township asked the West Windsor Historical Society to remove any items of historical significance from the house.
Hsueh, speaking at the council meeting, said the historical society, along with the Grover family and township personnel, completed the clearing of the house by mid-April. In an interview, Hsueh said that not much in the home was determined to be part of the town’s history.
In early May, the home was determined to be structurally unsafe, and personnel from the West Windsor Department of Public Works boarded up windows of the house.
At the May 14 council meeting, residents accused the township of gutting the property with the intention of making it available to the Department of Public Works in the future. Hsueh dispelled that rumor at the May 29 Council meeting, saying Public Works was preserving safety after the house had been determined to be an unsafe structure.
He said he would never allow the property to be considered for such township use. Hsueh also said that because the 93-acre farm is categorized as preserved open space, the Department of Environmental Protection would have to be involved in any future plans for the site.
At the council meeting, residents expressed opinions ranging from sorrow over the possibility of losing a piece of West Windsor history to outrage over the mismanagement of the property, with accusations aimed at the mayor and business administrator.
Hsueh was about halfway into a 30-minute-long, detailed account of events leading up to the awarding of a bid to demolish the Grover house when Ted Grover, the son of Leroy Grover, stood up to dispute a key fact. Grover said that his parents’ home was not in the deplorable condition that the township finds it to be today.
He told the mayor, council, and the roomful of residents that his father had invested in a new heating system for the home, costing several thousand dollars, and it should have been fully functional, unless the past few winters had seen the pipes freeze.
That goes against the township’s recent assessment of the property (WW-P News, May 25), and Councilman Bryan Maher pointed out that Grover’s account contradicted points made on Hsueh’s timeline. But Grover said items had been taken from the house before he’d had an adequate opportunity to take a look at them.
Mayor Hsueh, looking surprised, apologized, saying he regretted not giving the family “more special attention.” He later asked Business Administrator Robert Hary if there was any way Grover could view what is left of items from the house.
John Church of 11 Princeton Place told Council that after Mrs. Grover moved out, various things in the home should have been evaluated for repairs and other items could have been dismantled properly. He also said the least desirable option — to sell the property — should have been discussed in 2009 or 2010, when the home was in livable condition.
“Why are there no paper trails of funds that account for transfers of any items?” Church asked the Council and the administration.
According to a detailed timeline provided by Hsueh at the council meeting, on February 19, 2009, the “life rights” on the Grover house were vacated by Mrs. Leroy Grover when she moved into a home in Village Grande.
Two days earlier, Sam Surtees, West Windsor’s municipal land use manager, and Chris Marion, the business administrator at the time, met with the Council (which at the time included Linda Geevers and George Borek) to discuss the viability of renting the Grover farm house. A sample residential lease agreement was drafted in 2009, but nothing further was done.
One year later, Council approved the 2010 capital budget, which included $60,000 to be allocated for the demolition of the Grover house and “out buildings” on the property. The capital improvement request form from 2010 stated “all of the structures listed at the project location are unsafe and/or unsuitable for township use.”
At the time, councilmember Diane Ciccone inquired about the demolition of the structures on the Grover’s Mill Farm, the replacement of the vehicles for energy efficient vehicles, and the outsourcing of public land maintenance or utilizing a shared service agreement with another township. In 2010, Surtees also informed Council that “the farming rights” for the property lasted until late 2011.
The Council that approved the 2010 budget included Geevers and Borek (who was council president) as well as current Council President Kamal Khanna. Therefore, Hsueh pointed out, the only council members who were not aware of the eventual plans for the Grover home were Kristina Samonte and Bryan Maher, both elected in November of 2011.
Maher said he understood how a previous council could have overlooked the $60,000 amount in their review of the proposed 2010 budget. As he scrutinized this year’s budget, he noticed things in the capital budget that were “generously allocated capital, some for projects that were probably never going to happen.”
Maher expressed frustration with a lack of oversight by Mayor Hsueh and others in the administration. “It’s total mismanagement. From day one, there should have been a lengthy discourse as soon as Mrs. Grover moved out of the house as to what to do with the property. Instead three years went by where people were asleep at the switch.”
“I can’t speak for whether or not Council in 2010 spent a lot of time analyzing the capital budget, but either they missed it or it got lost in the shuffle,” Maher said.
Maher has often emphasized penny-pinching with the municipal budget, but he said at the May 29 meeting that there are times when a community needs to spend to preserve character. “Grover Farm is more identifiable with the town than any other place in West Windsor, and we must preserve the history of it,” Maher said.
Maher said he drives his family past the farm almost on a daily basis. His two older children attended Village School and Grover Middle School, and his youngest daughter will do so in the future. Maher’s kids have picked pumpkins at the farm, and he remembers meeting Leroy Grover on several occasions.
Samonte spoke about the need to preserve a town’s history, recalling a period of her childhood when her family lived in East Windsor and drove through farms in the area. She cited an example of a farm in Tewksbury where the township preserved a historic site and accommodated affordable housing in the process.
Geevers, with tears in her eyes, had fond memories of picking fruit and vegetables at the farm when Leroy Grover was alive. “It was a real part of growing up in West Windsor,” she said.
Marshall Lerner of 3 Sapphire Drive noted that the house could have been rented or repaired.
“I think there is suspicion with this issue — if the mayor was a friend of the family, then it is very serious conflict of interest,” Lerner said.
Pete Weale of Fisher Place, who in recent online postings has accused the township of looting the Grovers’ former residence and keeping the proceeds from the sale of items hidden from the public, attended the meeting with some props, including a stopwatch to time his allotted public comment, and an iron whistle to demonstrate his opinion of the issue.
“I came here tonight to make claim for whistleblower status. The mayor and administrator are in violation of their fiduciary responsibilities. The public demands transcripts of public meetings where the Grover farm was discussed, and also the theft of public assets — taken from the bedroom of our most decorated township war hero (Thomas Grover),” Weale said.
Weale was interrupted by Council President Kamal Khanna when his three minutes to speak was finished, but he kept talking because his stopwatch showed that former Council member Charles Morgan spoke for four minutes and 45 seconds. Khanna ordered that Council take a two-minute break, and Weale continued to speak about the lack of public information offered by the administration. His public comments concluded in four minutes and 50 seconds.
Weale suggested that because Hary will retire on July 1 (WW-P News, May 25) the “part-time mayor” should take over the responsibilities of Hary’s position, and the business administrator’s $150,000 salary should go toward the restoration of the Grover house.
Tom Sullivan of 416 South Post Road grew up in a farm family, and his grandparents owned a farm in Robbinsville. He attended a council meeting to hear about the solar farm at the community college, around the corner from his home. Instead Sullivan found himself addressing the Grover Farm controversy.
“The saddest day of my grandfather’s life was the day he sold his farm. We come from a farming community. This is our heritage. Do we just demolish everything we don’t take care of?” he asked.
Sullivan then suggested that Hary should lose his pension to compensate for the furniture and other assets from the Grover Farm that “belong to West Windsor residents.” Township Attorney Michael W. Herbert then told Sullivan he was in violation of Robert’s Rules of Order by addressing Hary, an individual, and not the Council as a whole. But a few voices from the crowd supported Sullivan to continue speaking his mind.
“Are you (Mayor and Council) above the rest of us here? You’re the ones playing with our money,” he said. “The next time we address this issue we need the name of the person who dropped the ball — we need a name! If no one is responsible, then it was a criminal action to ransack the place. Don’t we have a detective in this town? Let’s call the West Windsor Police and have them conduct a full investigation of the crime,” Sullivan said.
Meanwhile, Lerner asked Council to have the administration provide the answers. “I didn’t hear either the mayor or administrator take responsibility for what went on at the Grover property. Was it willful neglect? I will ask Council to make a request for either the mayor or administrator to let us know who was responsible for the job that was not done. As Ted Grover has told us, the house was habitable three years ago, but somebody allowed that property to deteriorate, somebody being paid by taxpayer money,” Lerner said.
Lerner is a former volunteer and organizer for Habitat for Humanity. He told Council that with the evidence of strong public support, a volunteer project could be organized to restore the home. He said that aside from eager residents, it could be an opportunity for local businesses, major corporations in the area, and employees from the township to get involved in preserving West Windsor.
Church was also a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, and he told Council that he has seen far worse conditions in homes in Trenton compared with the pictures of the Grover home that were shared by Weale. He was the first to offer his own effort if the home can be restored.
“You can count on me to help if it gets to that,” Church said.
James Solloway of 5 Monroe Drive was also disturbed by recent council meetings. Solloway urged the Council to investigate the matter. Solloway also offered a suggestion that drew a loud round of applause from residents.
“Maybe some part of the $2 million in liquor license money can be allocated to the Grover house!” Solloway said.
Toby Shor of 39 Grande Boulevard came to the meeting to discuss the restoration of money to residents of Village Grande. But during public comments she noted that “tt seems that the cart leads the horse, and it seems that decisions are made and then we are informed about it. That is not tolerable.”
For Maher, the buck stops at Mayor Hsueh’s desk. “He can’t say ‘well I didn’t know’ — it’s his job to know,” he said. “The residents of this town are passionate about our heritage, and Grover’s farm is part of that heritage. I believe there is an absolute disconnect between what the mayor and administration are thinking and believing and the sentiments of the community they represent.”
